


with all my skin and bone

by unicornpoe



Series: Stucky Bingo 2019 Fills [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Bearded Steve Rogers, Creepy Alexander Pierce, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fashionista Bucky Barnes, Fluff and Angst, Gratuitous Banter, Gratuitous Tenderness, Halloween, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Kissing, Knitting, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve Rogers, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Stucky Bingo 2019, but let's face it, canon-typical violence in later chapters, very little real plot for something of this premise, we just care about the softness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2020-09-22 23:23:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 54,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20330227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicornpoe/pseuds/unicornpoe
Summary: Agents Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes don't get along. With Steve's reckless attitude and Bucky's cautious, no-nonsense way of doing things, they clash from the beginning, and make enemies of each other before they can even think of being friends. But when both men are assigned to a job that will take them to the suburbs in investigation of CEO Alexander Pierce—where they're supposed to live together, to be married to each other, to be in love with each other—old feelings rise up, and new ones emerge.What happens when the person you hate most in the world has to be the person you love? What happens when the line between lies and truth gets blurred?Pining, that's what. And some kissing, too.***Steve and Bucky fall together, and fall in love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> SHE'S HERE. MY BABY IS HERE. LOOK AT HER!
> 
> Thank you, and hello! Are you ready to read about two dumbasses being dumbasses while falling in love? I hope so! Please heed the tags—when I say slow burn I MEAN slow burn—and remember, kids, I don't know a diddly-darn thing about spies so this is purely for fun. If you know more than spies about me, then you're really cool, and I respect you, but this is just not gonna be a super accurate fic and it might not be your place to hang out, my friend. 
> 
> All chapters except the epilogue are written, and I'll be editing as I post. I plan to post every Friday until there's no more left. 
> 
> Thanks again, and enjoy! <3
> 
> This fulfills the square "enemies to lovers" on my Stucky Bingo card

_All night I stretched my arms across him, rivers of blood, the dark woods, singing with all my skin and bone _

_"Please keep him safe. Let him lay his head on my chest and we will be like sailors, _

_swimming in the sound of it, dashed to pieces."_

_-_Richard Siken, Crush

*

Steve curls his hands over the arms of the hard chair in Fury’s office and keeps his face carefully passive. 

“It should be fairly straightforward,” Fury is saying. He’s shuffling through a stack of papers that Steve can’t see, tipped back in his own much more comfortable chair, ankles resting on the desktop. He looks relaxed. Confident. Totally unaware that he’s sending Steve to his doom. 

“Not that it matters,” Fury continues, shooting Steve a glance over the papers in his hands with his one good eye. He stares at Steve for a second, and Steve’s hands feel clammy, and he’s worried that, for a spy, he might not have as good a poker face as he’s always thought. “There aren’t any issues here, are there, Agent Rogers?”

Steve squeezes the armrests hard, meeting Fury’s gaze head-on. “No, sir,” he lies shortly. 

Fury’s scowling, but that’s his usual expression. “Damn right.” He watches Steve for a second more before looking back down, obviously losing interest in whatever personal war Steve’s having with himself. “Agent Barnes is out today, but I’ve updated him on this mission and he understands his duties as well as your own. He’ll be at the house when you arrive. Any questions?”

And what can Steve say? “No, sir,” he repeats, and waits for Fury’s nod of dismissal before he’s up, the envelope Fury gave him in his hands, and all but bolting down the hallway.

***

Steve’s apartment tiny and barren. 

SHIELD-issued, it matches the residences of every agent, at least architecturally: a bedroom, a living room, a bathroom, a kitchen. He’s been told by Agent Hill many times that he decorates his apartment like the inside of a coffin—i.e. not at all—but he just doesn’t see the point. He could die on any one of the missions he goes on—they all could. Why waste good money on decorations for a place that he might never come back to on any given day?

He goes there now, mercifully avoiding any other agents in the hallway of the tower they all live in, locking the door hastily behind him before heading to the kitchen. He grabs a beer and then drops to a seat at the table, tossing the envelope down.

Staring at it like it might jump up and bite him at any second, Steve cracks his beer and takes a long, fortifying gulp. He knows what’s inside, of course—the details of this upcoming mission, everything Fury had told him half an hour ago in his office—but for some reason, just having those details in his head and actually seeing them written out on paper feels monumentally different. If he opens that envelope, sees those papers, reads those words… it’s real. 

It’s ten years of military training that force him to finally open it, to _ make _ it real. He breaks the seal and shakes the envelope gently until the contents come slithering out onto the table, picking them up as a stress headache begins to form preemptively between his eyebrows. 

And Steve is right. The papers say exactly what Fury had told him. 

Steve’s been hired on as Head of Security to Alexander Pierce, the CEO of some of the largest nuclear power plants in the country, and at the top of SHIELD’s list of people suspected to be embezzling their own companies—and therefore the country. Steve is to watch Pierce’s every move, and do his best to collect enough damning evidence about him and his fraudulent tendencies as he possibly can. Steve is to move to a suburb upstate, near where Pierce lives in his multi-billion dollar mansion, to be closer to his job. Steve is to pretend to be married to a SHIELD agent who will run point on this mission. 

That agent is Agent James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes. 

There’s a ring in the envelope, too, a thin band of gold; it’s plain, nothing flashy. Anything more ostentatious and Steve might actually have to call this off. 

Sighing, Steve finishes off his beer and gets up to rinse his bottle out in the sink. It clinks loudly against the metal, and if he were trained just a little bit more poorly, he might actually jump, lost in his own head as he is. 

He just tosses the bottle into the recycling bin in the corner. 

He wants to complain. He wants to march into Fury’s office and request a change of partners. He’s been thinking of getting out of the game for a while now—why not cut it off early? God, he can’t imagine Barnes is happy about this either; it might be the one thing they’ve ever agreed upon in their miserable lives. Steve could probably call him up right now and get him to go to Fury with this. Together, they could write out a list of reasons that they’re incompatible that’s a mile long. 

Fury wouldn’t care, though. The reasons are numerous: they fight too much, they get on each other’s nerves, Barnes is an idiot who doesn’t understand that sometimes the best thing to do is just _ take action _ and think about the consequences later because it’s more important to do what is right than to do what is safe, and he’s a goddamn hyppocrit anyway because he refuses to even go out in the field, preferring to sit in a cozy little room somewhere and yell at Steve through a comm, and Steve cannot fucking handle him and his superiority complex. To name a few. 

But they aren’t life threatening. So Fury wouldn’t give a fuck. 

And Steve knows himself well enough; knows himself well enough to be certain he could never just up and leave on these grounds. 

Doesn’t mean he’s looking forward to this. 

He thinks of the first time he met Barnes, on that job in New Jersey almost a decade ago: both of them new to this, still green and optimistic, eager to prove themselves fighting evil in any way they could. 

They’d been tasked with taking down a HYDRA base in Trenton. Not the biggest base, but the rules that apply to other criminal organizations don’t apply to HYDRA: HYDRA dominates crime in the United States, focused on some twisted, Nazi-esque notion of world-betterment through mass killing and tyrrany. Still, the base was large enough that the team Fury sent in was five people, all armed to the teeth and ready to kick some ass— 

Except, of course, Barnes. Barnes, who was so pretty when Steve saw him for the first time that he’d been dazzled beyond recognizing what an asshole he was until the job actually started. Barnes, who didn’t smile, who sat quietly in the corner of Fury’s office while he gave them their orders, nodding when he was spoken too, his round gray eyes watchful. Barnes, who Steve had foolishly thought he recognized a similar spirit in, a potential friend in this vast and overwhelming new world of lies and secrets and espionage. 

Barnes, who had sat in a van instead of taking part, watching them all on a computer monitor, barking out orders like he was somehow better than any of the other team members, criticizing Steve especially when he’d run into the base before he had been instructed to. 

Steve was wrong about Bucky Barnes in the beginning, but he knows that he isn’t wrong about him now. He’s hypocritical, cowardly; he’s a nightmare to work with, especially to someone as impulse-driven as Steve. He’s an asshole. 

And Steve has to marry him. 

***

Bucky’s pretty sure his mouth is hanging wide open as he listens to Fury ramble on through his shitty burner phone, but he doesn’t care. It’s not like there’s anyone around to see him in this hellhole. 

“I’ve got the house secured for you and Agent Rogers. Fully furnished, stocked with whatever you’ll need. I’m sending a marriage license over with Agent Hill before you get there, and it’s fully up to date,” Fury says, and Bucky very nearly whites out for a second. “Rogers is doing most of the grunt work on this one, you’re just running point from behind the scenes, so your main job is to look pretty and make nice with the neighbors. Think you can handle that?”

Bucky grunts something that Fury obviously construes as a yes, and Fury barrels on. Things about Alexander Pierce, the man Steve’s been hired to, what? Usher around his mansion? Things about their neighbors, what to expect from them, the tech that’s going to be waiting for them in the house. 

“Get in, play house, get the information, get out.”

Fury hangs up before Bucky can answer, an audible click floating down the line. 

Bucky lets the phone drop to his lap as he collapses backwards on his bed, arms going over his head as he stares up at the dirty ceiling of this New Mexico motel. 

What the _ fuck _. 

Briefly he considers pinching himself to make sure he hasn’t died and gone to hell, but he’s too exhausted from the mission that ended a couple of hours ago to move from his current position. Why does he have to be partnered up with _ Steve Rogers _ for what would, in any other circumstance, be a blissfully calm and relaxing mission? God, this mission would be a breeze without Rogers; a nice little vacation in a suburb somewhere, a string of days spent relaxing while his partner got intel on a gross old fuck. Now, he’s just going to spend the whole time with his face pressed to a computer screen, making sure Rogers’ reckless ass doesn’t get himself shot to death while being a stupid idiot. 

“Damn you,” Bucky says out loud, covering his face with both of his palms. The metal one feels cool against his skin, and while that would usually bother him, right now it just feels good, works to relieve some of the headache that’s built up out of fatigue and annoyance, throbbing behind his skull. 

The only satisfaction he can get from this is in thinking that Rogers might be miserable, too. Rogers, the guy who likes to throw himself into the most dangerous situations with all two brain cells he possesses. Rogers, who clearly thinks anything Bucky has to say is not worth listening to just because Bucky likes to _ take his time _ and _ do things right. _ Rogers, a former army captain, the man who has only two emotions—stoic and _ stupid _—and likes to glower at Bucky across the room at meetings until Bucky’s skin feels like it’s itching off. Rogers, who thinks that just because Bucky was a sergeant and not a captain like him, is somehow less experienced, even though Bucky is the one who got fucking captured in Afghanistan, Bucky is the one who was held for months in a tiny cell with no running water and no light from the outside world, Bucky was the one who was tortured until he lost his fucking arm— 

Breathing hard, Bucky sits up, elbows on his knees, hands linked around the back of his neck. His lungs strain to take in air. 

He doesn’t know if he can do this. 

Bucky could refuse, he supposes. Tell Fury that he’s done. 

But then… but Rogers would know why. 

Rogers would see Bucky turning this mission down, refusing it, and he would know why. He would know it’s because of him. He would think Bucky a coward. 

And Bucky Barnes is anything but a coward. 

He thinks of the way Rogers always looks at him whenever they work together; the obvious contempt behind the other man’s gorgeous blue eyes, the way he sets his stubborn jaw as he looks at Bucky like he’s useless. Like he doesn’t matter. 

It’s a shame, really, because Agent Rogers is simultaneously the hottest human being Bucky has ever set eyes upon, and the _ worst. _

As Bucky’s breath settles in his chest, he lays back on the mattress, ignoring the way the springs press into the small of his back. He’s still on top of the sheets, but he doesn’t move to pull them up. He forces himself to close his eyes. 

He can do this. He can be the best damn husband Agent Rogers’ sorry ass will ever be lucky enough to have, and he can befriend the shit out of those neighbors, and he can look pretty doing it, too. 

Get in, play house, get the information. 

Get out.


	2. Chapter 2

There’s a car waiting for Steve at the base of the Tower, engine thrumming gently. It’s not one of the sleek, black, standard SHIELD-issued vehicles that they usually take, and Steve doesn’t need to be told why; that would draw too much attention to him, since he’s playing at being a civillian here for the next however-the-fuck long. 

Steve slips into the passenger seat of the vehicle, feeling odd without his bags. He’s used to traveling light for missions, but this one is different in that he isn’t allowed to bring anything of his own but for the file in his hand and the clothes on his back—leather jacket already equipped with a special tracker sewn into the collar in case things go wrong. 

Fury—or, more accurately, Fury’s underlings—have the house stocked with everything Steve and Barnes will need in order to play their roles convincingly. Steve hopes that includes toothbrushes. 

The drive from the city to the suburb he and Agent Barnes are going to be sequestered in is around two hours, but despite the fact that Steve had gotten barely any sleep last night, he doesn’t take the opportunity to doze off. He feels keyed up, jangly with nerves; his hands can’t keep still, and he alternates between paging through the file for the thousandth time and messing around on his phone for the whole ride. His legs bounce restlessly. 

Before him, the nameless driver doesn’t so much as glance back at Steve. It’s as if Steve isn’t even there. He’s almost used to that sort of thing, after seven years working for SHIELD, but that doesn’t mean his skin doesn’t still crawl a little at the anonymity of it all. Even though this had been very similar to his first experience with SHIELD—Fury had recruited him directly out of the army, cutting his service off early for this more… specialized form of intelligence, and Steve had had to adjust very quickly to the complete lack of confidants anywhere around him—and even though he would consider himself a private person, it doesn’t mean he’s not a bit unsettled by the blankness of it all sometimes. 

Not that he’d ever admit that to anyone. 

He can tell they’re getting closer when the large buildings of the city fall away, and start getting replaced by smaller, cookie cutter houses. It’s the middle of October, so most of the lawns are yellowing, the grass short and blunt; there are more trees out here than in Manhattan, and their leaves are scattered like a patchy, fiery-shaded carpet over the streets and yards and roofs. 

Steve’s chest feels tighter with every mile they travel. 

He wonders if Barnes is there yet. 

It’s been a while since Steve’s last seen him. Not since… hell, not since that mission in Bangladesh, the one that had ended up with Barnes and Steve screaming at each other in a ramshackle bar and getting kicked out into the dirty street. Barnes had gotten angry just because Steve had taken a risk Barnes hadn’t authorized, had put himself on the line without Barnes clearing the action. Even though it payed off and Steve had gotten the  _ fucking information,  _ Barnes had been irate _ .  _

The tightness in Steve’s chest grows hotter. 

That mission may have been over half a year ago, but it’s still easy to call up the smug look on Barnes’ pretty face as he’d listened to Steve getting chewed out by Agent Hill, easy to remember the way Steve’s hands had brushed against the skin of Barnes’ neck as he’d twisted his hands in Barnes’ collar and hauled his uppity ass off of that bar stool. 

Fury had reamed  _ both _ of them then—Steve for his apparent recklessness, Barnes for his overreaction—bellowing fit to rival any officer Steve had ever encountered in the army before. Steve hadn’t cared. It’d been worth it, just to see the way Barnes’ pretty mouth fell open when he couldn’t think of anything else to say. 

The car pulls to a smooth halt and Steve jerks out of these recollections, blinking out the window at the house they’re in front of. 

It’s big, at least by Steve’s standards, when he compares it to the places he’s lived in for his whole life: two floors, white siding, a bunch of windows. There’s a row of bushes on either side of the front porch, and a carport off to the side, and Steve sees that there’s already a car parked there, something gray and nondescript. 

None of this is what gets his attention, though. 

Agent Barnes is standing on the front porch, leaning against one of the posts at the top of the steps with his arms crossed over his chest and his head tipped to the side. He is staring down the chipped sidewalk at Steve, and there is a very brittle smile on his face, a disturbing rictus that makes an old, familiar anger flare up in Steve’s gut. 

Steve plasters a smile on his own face before he opens the car door and climbs out, tucking the file into the inside pocket of his jacket as he goes. This whole street is lined with houses, and it’s a Saturday, and he and Barnes know better than most that there are always eyes everywhere. 

And so it begins, Steve thinks, and shuts the door with a slam behind himself. 

He starts off down the sidewalk at a much faster pace than the one he wants to be going at, and Barnes jogs down the porch steps toward him, hands tucked in the pockets of his absurdly tight jeans. They meet halfway. 

“Agent Rogers,” Barnes says, his voice clipped through that false smile. 

He looks good. Long hair glossy and slightly curly, pulled up in a half-bun thing at the back of his head. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, and the stubble that’s coming in across his chin and the line of his jaw is several shades darker than Steve’s. His eyes flash, and Steve’s breath comes out in a harsh puff of air. He’s gorgeous. It’s one of the worst things about him. 

Asshole. 

Steve doesn’t say anything. He just winds his hands into the thin fabric of Bucky’s floral-printed windbreaker, tugs him in close, and kisses him. 

***

Bucky was expecting it; they’re newlyweds, and Bucky’s been up here for a week already without Rogers, so it makes sense that they’d greet one another like this after that much time spent apart. 

Bucky was expecting it—but it still catches him off guard a little bit. 

His body’s immediate reaction is to tense up, to strike out, to dart away; he isn’t used to Rogers touching him out of anything but animosity, and so he’s on his guard when the man’s big hands land anywhere near him. Bucky stiffens when Rogers’ fingers brush his lower back, and then Rogers’ prods him in the side, and Bucky remembers, and Bucky— 

Bucky gives as good as he gets. 

There’s something liberating, he realizes quickly, about kissing the hell out of the man he can’t stand, about feeling the way Rogers’ body responds to Bucky’s touch in a way that is most certainly involuntary. Rogers is a few inches taller than Bucky, so Bucky winds the fingers of his metal hand around the back of his neck and pulls him close; Rogers’ beard scratches at Bucky’s cheeks and mouth as Bucky kisses him, and it’s infuriating, so Bucky slips his flesh hand under the layers of Rogers’ jacket and t-shirt, scratching his nails slightly over the hot skin spread over the thick muscles of Rogers’ back, and smirks at the tiny puff of air that punches out of his lungs. 

Rogers pulls away first. He blinks at Bucky for half a second, looking disoriented and dazed, before something behind the blue of his eyes snaps to attention and he straightens, arms falling away. 

Bucky re-crosses his own arms, and pastes a flashy smile upon his face. He’s sure it looks more like a grimace. 

“Barnes,” says Rogers, the first word he’s spoken to Bucky since he got out of the car. His voice is low and rough through the gnash of his smile, sharp like he always is; like he’s giving orders. 

Bucky hates that. 

He looks good. He’s let his hair and his beard go, and Bucky isn’t proud enough to ignore the fact that that was probably a decision influenced by heavenly powers or something. He’s still roughly the size of a tank. Rogers looks more like an enormous, sexy lumberjack than he ever has. That’s ok. Bucky can appreciate an aesthetic and still hate whoever’s taking it on. 

“Inside,” grunts Bucky, reaching down and grabbing one of Rogers’ hands as he begins to lead him up the sidewalk. 

“Yes, dear,” mutters Rogers, putting up obvious resistance to the way Bucky’s tugging his arm, and being as much of a bullheaded prick as he always is. Bucky glances over his shoulder to glare at him, and Rogers raises both eyebrows in mock surprise, smirking at Bucky. He tuts loudly. 

God, he’s a dick. 

They get inside before any of the overly friendly neighbors catch sight of them and descend like a pack of weirdly kind vultures, and Bucky shuts and locks the door behind them, feeling Rogers’ eyes on the back of his neck like a brand the whole time. 

When he turns around, Rogers is glaring at him, no trace of that fake smile present. 

Well, alright then. 

Bucky drops his, too. 

“You and I both know,” Rogers says, staring down at Bucky from beneath his knitted eyebrows, thick arms crossed over his ridiculous chest, “that this isn’t going to be fun.”

_ Fun.  _ Like they’re in this job to have  _ fun.  _

“I’d like to think not,” Bucky says. He can feel his face sliding into a scowl, eyebrows angled in towards each other, mouth a flat line. “Since we’re at our  _ job. _ ”

Rogers just keeps talking like Bucky hadn’t even opened his mouth, which is entirely typical of him. 

“I don’t like you, and you don’t like me,” he says, and Bucky  _ knows _ that but still… ouch. “But I think we can be professional about this.” He shifts on his feet, all six-foot-something of him, and the force of his stare isn’t even lessened by the strand of hair that’s hanging down over his forehead, the absolute bastard. “Let’s just stick to the plan, and see as little of each other as possible, and maybe try not to get fired just because Fury forgot about Bangladesh.”

Bucky slides his hands into his pockets, jaw clenched. “I don’t think,” he says, “I’m the one that needs a lecture on self control.”

For half a second Bucky thinks Rogers is going to snap somehow: lose a little bit of the barely-held cool he’s struggling under, let his voice go low like it does when he’s pissed, take a couple steps forward and… and, yeah, ok, so maybe Bucky likes to get under his skin, but god. He’s only human. 

But Rogers doesn’t do any of that, and Bucky wars with himself over feeling disappointed or relieved. Rogers just draws himself up stiffly, jaw working beneath his beard, and turns on his heel. 

He stomps up the flight of stairs towards their bedrooms on the top floor, and Bucky gives in a little and watches his ass as he goes. That’s fine, he’s allowed. 

They are married, after all. 


	3. Chapter 3

Steve can feel Barnes’ eyes on him as he mounts the stairs, hot like a burn against his skin, and he uses the last vestiges of his willpower to ignore the gaze. 

It’s… difficult. 

By the time Steve finally reaches the second floor, he wants to scream. 

He doesn’t, though he does pause at the top of the steps, one hand braced against the wall, and take a series of very deep, very even breaths, eyes falling closed. 

He can do this. He can do this. He will not murder Agent Barnes before this mission can even fully begin. He can  _ do this.  _

Opening his eyes, Steve takes in the view of the hallway he’s come upon. 

Downstairs, he’d been too preoccupied with Barnes and the memory of that infuriating kiss and the hot thing simmering low in his blood to really get a good look at the bottom floor of their SHIELD-issued home, but Barnes isn’t up here, which means Steve can finally concentrate. 

It’s surprisingly homey. He’s standing at the top of the staircase still, and there’s a short hallway with four different doors on either side leading off of it before him; the walls are painted a warm, subtle shade of tan, and each closed door is painted light yellow, which Steve registers dimly as a nice touch. He pushes through rightmost door across from him, curiosity piqued more than he’d expected it to be. 

It’s a bathroom, and it’s  _ big _ , especially when Steve compares it to his tiny, closet-like bathroom back in his apartment. There’s a shower in the corner, and a big bathtub separate from that; the counter runs the length of a whole wall, with a line of mirrors above the two sinks set into the tasteful marble. Scanning it, Steve’s eyes catch sight of a cluster of brightly colored bottles and tubes and combs and brushes sitting off to the right of one sink, and he scoffs loudly as he realizes that it’s all Barnes’ hair products.

Of course. Steve, who has never before in his life cared whether or not someone wants to take the time to make themselves look good, finds himself unreasonably annoyed. 

The next room is a bedroom, and Steve doesn’t spend much time in here. Clearly it belongs to Barnes: the bed is unmade, covers piled in a nest-like shape in the center of the mattress, dirty clothes in a clump in one corner. There’s a foot-high stack of books on the nightstand, and what looks bizarrely like a knitting project on top of them, a bundle of striped wool and wooden needles. 

It already smells lived in, unlike the rest of the house, which so far has seemed still stale and unapproachable. Smells like him—a little bit sweet, a little bit dark. Familiar, and isn’t that distressing?

Steve shuts the door quietly behind him as he steps back into the hallway, skin prickling. 

There’s another bedroom—clearly Steve’s—and it’s set up much the same that Barnes’ was. It’s fully stocked with clothes and shoes and razors and shower products, basically everything Steve could possibly need while he’s here, which, on top of the SHIELD-activated credit card in Steve’s back pocket, should be more than enough to get him by. His bedroom still smells like empty house, sterile and blank and lonely, and he wonders if Barnes has even stepped foot in here yet. Probably not. 

He knows what’s in the last room before he even opens the door, but he goes in with a sense of anticipation anyway. 

It’s Barnes’ office. 

There’s an enormous desk in the center of the the back wall, placed in front of a dark-curtained window so no light filters in, and no prying eyes can see what he’s doing. On the desk are no less than three computers, all powered off, and two laptops sitting closed off to the side. There’s a bundle of wires clumped together on the floor, not hooked up to anything; a file like the one Steve has been given is resting open on the desktop, thick with rifled papers and photos and information. 

Everything is sleek and black and deadly-looking, poised for used, and just the sight of all of it kicks up anticipation in Steve’s gut. This is where Barnes will sit, watching Steve on the video feed while he’s at Pierce’s mansion, listening in through the comms, tracking his every move through the device planted in the uniform Steve has to wear on the job. 

This is, hopefully, where Steve will send whatever intel he can gather on Pierce, therefore ending this mission as quickly as he possibly can. 

Nodding to himself, Steve backs out of the room, heading to his own bedroom with nothing better to do. Tomorrow, he goes to Pierce, and all of this fully begins. Tomorrow, he’s one step closer to everything being over. 

Tonight, he can relax. 

***

Steve has just finished going through everything SHIELD has provided him with, checking for bugs because you never know who’s infiltrated you, when somebody knocks on his bedroom door.

Logically he knows it’s Barnes, but honestly that makes him feel worse than the prospect of someone showing up to blow his cover and kill him. At least that might be painless. 

This is bound to hurt. 

The thought must show on his face when he jerks the door open and looks down at Barnes standing there, because the relatively even expression on Barnes own face quickly clouds into a deep-set scowl. Steve tries to clear the answering frown from his own face—what he said earlier to Barnes was true, after all; he thinks they should try to be as civil as possible for as long as it takes, simply because he values his job more than he values this feud with this man—but it’s too late. 

“Get ready to leave,” Barnes grunts, deep gray-blue eyes unblinking as he meets Steve’s gaze. Distantly, Steve registers that Barnes is wearing something different than he had on earlier, and that he looks even better than before, which is unfair. “We’ve got dinner with the neighbors in thirty minutes.”

“I—what?” Instantly, Steve lets his scowl take over. “You couldn’t have told me this sooner?”

“You couldn’t have stayed downstairs and talked things over with me like a good husband instead of storming off upstairs to have a fit alone?” Barnes shoots back, and the line between his eyebrows is dangerously deep. 

Steve clenches his jaw so tightly he’s afraid his teeth will crack. He breathes in very deeply through his nose, and lets it all out in a slow, steady stream. 

“Fine,” he says carefully, tone purposefully low. “ _ Fine.  _ Which set of neighbors is this, if I’m permitted to know?”

Barnes looks like he wants to keep fighting—god, if Steve didn’t know better he’d swear that Barnes lives to key him up—but at the last second he switches gears, speaking with curt but not actively antagonistic tone. “The Wilsons. Sam and Riley, ex-airforce, married for three years after Riley was injured honourably discharged. Sam was honourably discharged at the same time, due to his heroic efforts—”

“Yeah, ok, Barnes, I read the damn file too,” Steve grumbles, rolling his eyes a little.

Barnes crosses his arms. It seems to be a pose he favors. 

“Yeah, well, you gotta be nice to them and to me while we’re there,” he says, giving Steve such a fiercely serious glare that he almost wants to laugh. Barnes is wearing a pair of overalls cut into shorts, with a short-sleeved floral button-down beneath that, and another windbreaker over it, this time light pink, and he’s glaring at Steve like he’s intimidating. Even with the metal arm and the black combat boots and the shit-face and the scary job, he really isn’t. He’s sort of cute. God, what a concept. “Because they like me, and I like them, and they think you’re the love of my fucking life and I don’t want them to decide I’m a crazy person.”

“Wouldn’t be too far off the mark,” Steve mumbles, eyeing the way Barnes’ eyelid might possibly be twitching. 

“ _ Rogers _ ,” says Barnes, and he fucking  _ pouts, _ lower lip dropping and everything, and Jesus  _ Christ.  _

“Get out of here so I can get dressed, then,” Steve says, reaching out and shoving Barnes in the shoulder very lightly. His skin is warm, even through all the layers. “I gotta make a good impression, since you look like somebody’s sugar baby.”

“Yeah,  _ your _ sugar baby, dollface,” Barnes says, blinking heavily up at Steve, and Steve shuts the door in his face with a resounding slam.

***

Bucky plants himself on the bottom step while he waits for Rogers to get dressed, chin in his flesh hand, elbow on his knee. 

He wasn’t lying when he said he wanted Rogers to make a good first impression. Mostly because that’s imperative to the success of this job, but also because he actually really  _ likes _ Sam and Riley. He’s only been here three days, but the three of them have already had several conversations across their front lawns, and it’s obvious that both men are kind. Bucky doesn’t meet a lot of kind people on missions. Bucky doesn’t meet a lot of kind people, period. 

He just hopes Rogers can keep himself from being an impulsive asshat tonight, because Bucky’d be sad if the Wilsons banned him from their house ever again. Especially because Riley was hinting at a knitting circle, and Bucky needs  _ something  _ to do while Rogers is off snooping at Pierce’s fucking palace. 

Rogers’ bedroom door slams, and Bucky stands as he hears his footsteps come to the top of the stairs. He doesn’t bother to look behind him; he just crosses the entryway, grabs the bottle of wine that he’d run out and bought while Rogers was moping upstairs from before the door, and steps outside, trusting Rogers to follow along behind him. 

Bucky watches Rogers lock the door behind them. His shoulder-to-waist ratio is ridiculous. It is also devastating. 

There’s nothing more than grass separating the Wilson yard from the Rogers-Barnes yard, and Rogers starts to cut through the side yards like a heathen. 

“What the fuck,” Bucky growls, reaching out with his free hand and snagging Rogers wrist firmly. It’s Bucky’s metal hand, so he keeps his hold relatively gentle, careful not to bruise Rogers’ pale skin as Bucky knows he so easily could. Rogers stops short in surprise, looking over his shoulder at Bucky with wide blue eyes. 

“What?” he asks stupidly, yanking his arm out of Bucky’s hold. He makes no move to keep walking, so Bucky doesn’t try to grab him again. 

“Were you raised in a barn?” Bucky snaps, turning on his heel and stepping onto the sidewalk instead. He can practically feel Rogers’ eye-roll, even with his back turned, but he follows along. 

“No,” Rogers says. He comes up beside Bucky, slanting a glance down at him through the corners of his eyes. Bucky slants one back, taking in the pull of Rogers’ leather jacket across his shoulders, smirking when Rogers scowls. “There are no barns in Brooklyn. Unless you count those weird little hipster bars made out of wood and covered in fairy lights.”

Surprised, Bucky looks at him more fully before he can stop himself. “Brooklyn?” he echoes dumbly.

Rogers meets his eyes. For once, he doesn’t look pissed off, and it’s surprisingly nice. “Yeah. You too?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, biting the inside of his cheek as he lets his eyes rest on Rogers. Bucky had no idea—and he supposes that makes sense. SHIELD makes sure that they’re all stripped of any accent they might have, getting them all as close to the boring, standard, midwestern American accent as they can, and he and Rogers are no different. There’s no trace of Brooklyn left in either of their dialects, not when they’re on the job. 

Rogers rings the doorbell as the step up onto the porch, and the look he gives Bucky could almost be considered tolerant. “Knew I recognized that fight in you from somewhere,” he says, and Bucky is saved from answering by the door opening. 

It’s Riley. “Hey, guys,” he says, and he smiles at them from his wheelchair, maneuvering it back so that Bucky and Rogers have room to step into the hall. 

“Hey Riley.” Bucky nods at him, mustering up his own smile. He likes Riley because he’s shy and quiet, two qualities that Bucky relates quite heavily to now, ever since he’s been out of the army. He sees something in Riley’s eyes that he can relate to, as well: Riley lost the lower half of his legs in a run in with an RPG, and Bucky lost his arm in a prison in Afghanistan, but war is the common denominator between both of them, and so war is what they can rage at quietly together. 

“This is—,” Bucky begins, placing a somewhat awkward hand on Rogers’ upper arm and feeling the way he shifts beneath Bucky’s hold, just as Sam pops his head around the corner. 

Sam beams when he catches sight of them. “Neighbors!” he says, and steps out of the kitchen and into the entranceway, kissing the top of Riley’s head as he bends forward and taking the wine out of Bucky’s hand with a gracious little nod. He and Riley both smile up at Steve like he’s an old friend, just the way they’d looked at Bucky when he introduced himself. 

“Riley, Sam, this is my husband R—Steve,” Bucky fumbles, looking at Rogers as he smoothly takes Bucky’s hand in his own, gripping it firmly but gently. Steve is smiling at the Wilsons, every bit of him beautiful and charming and perfect, and Bucky  _ hates him _ because how is he so good at this? 

_ Because he’s a spy, dumbass, _ Bucky’s brain says helpfully.  _ It’s his job.  _

Bucky ignores it. 

“Pleasure to meet you, Steve,” Sam says, shaking Rogers’ hand in both of his own. Riley does the same, with a little less enthusiasm but no less genuine pleasure. 

“Thanks for inviting us,” says Steve. A grin, a flash of those blue eyes; Bucky begins devising a plan to make him as uncomfortable as possible without blowing their cover before the night is through, because he’s looking too at-ease, too in his element for Bucky’s comfort. “Bucky’s told me so much about you two, I feel like we already know each other.”

There’s something ironically funny about the fact that Rogers is going to be able to uphold that lie. He’s certainly read enough about the two of them in that fucking file. 

“Can’t really say the same,” Sam says, winking at Bucky. Bucky feels his cheeks flush. Ugh. He doesn’t  _ blush.  _ “Your husband’s a quiet guy. I know what that’s like,” Sam adds, and Riley pokes him teasingly in the ribcage.

Steve laughs. He has a really nice laugh. Deep, and rich, and low. Bucky doesn’t think he’s ever heard it before.

“No, Buck’s not a huge talker,” Steve says, and then he  _ kisses the side of Bucky’s head,  _ and  _ his beard tickles  _ and  _ Buck?  _ and  _ what? _ “Neither of us really are.”

“That’s ok, Sam’ll make up for it,” Riley says dryly, and Bucky makes sure to laugh obligingly with the rest of them, even as his blood begins to boil.

He can’t wait to make Rogers squirm. 


	4. Chapter 4

Alexander Pierce’s mansion rests right on the edge of the suburb Steve and Barnes are living in for the time being.

It’s ostentatious. It’s enormous. Pulling up to the gate in the nondescript Honda SHIELD designated as Steve and Barnes’ car for this mission, Steve doesn’t stare, but admits that he might if he weren’t so well trained. Because, honestly, what the fuck. 

It’s at least four stories, and made of sparkling glass and chrome, and surrounded by big, geometrically shaped hedges that bear no flowers. It’s uglier than Stark Tower, that big metal monstrosity that looms over Manhattan, and that’s saying something. 

Steve’s skin crawls just looking at it. 

The automated voice at the gate asks him for verification, and Steve gives it in the form of his last name, his handprint pressed to the keypad, and the retinal scan that he undergoes all in the space of five seconds. The gate swings open on a smooth, silent track, and Steve pulls into the cul de sac. 

He follows the curve of the driveway, arching an eyebrow at the way it curves beneath the pavement into a hidden parking garage, therefore eliminating the appearance that anyone actually inhabits this place. He parks in the first free space to the right, eyeing the vehicles of varying quality that line the dark walls. 

He isn’t surprised that most of them are older models. Based on what Pierce is paying him for the position of head of security, he can tell that Pierce isn’t a generous employer—at least when it comes to household staff. Jobs at any of his four nuclear power plants seem to be in relatively high demand. 

“ _ You in?” _

Barnes’ voice comes crackling in over the microscopic comm imbedded deep in Steve’s ear, invisible unless anyone actively hunts for it, and not able to be picked up by metal detectors thanks to the genius of the younger Stark, who makes all of SHIELD’s tech. Barnes sounds pissed; Steve supposes he has reason. There’s a video feed in Steve’s car that Barnes is currently watching him on from home, so he  _ knows _ Steve’s in, but still, Steve should have told him verbally. It’s protocall. 

But Steve is mad at Barnes, and he doesn’t  _ wanna  _ talk to him, dammit. 

“Yep,” Steve says briskly, grabbing his briefcase from the floor on the passenger side of the car. It’s heavy, filled with the five cameras that he needs to install while he’s here today in order for Barnes to have visuals of Steve from as many places as possible. 

“ _ Be careful, _ ” Barnes begins, and, annoyed, Steve interrupts him. 

“‘M not an idiot, Barnes,” he says, feeling along the collar of his uniform to be sure this second tracker from Fury is nestled into the fold. It is. 

He expects Barnes to lash back at him because that’s just what he does, but instead he sighs, and his weariness is evident across the line. The sound rests, hard and cold and unsatisfying, in the middle of Steve’s stomach. 

_ “Just do your job, _ ” Barnes says finally, and then he goes quiet. 

Steve climbs out of the car and locks the door behind himself, swinging the briefcase slightly by his legs as he strides to the elevator in the middle of the parking garage.

Barnes has no right to sound all weary and aggrieved like that, not when just last night he was doing his level best to make a fool of Steve in front of their actually quite nice neighbors. He’d been clingy and handsy and saccharine-sweet, holding Steve’s hand and resting his head against Steve’s shoulder and pressing the hard, warm line of his body up against Steve at every opportunity and smirking up at Steve from beneath his eyelashes whenever Sam and Riley’s backs were turned. 

Steve was flustered and on the brink of a mental snap all night. 

Barnes is the worst. 

The elevator ride is smooth, and Barnes is blissfully quiet. Steve savors this last bit of calm before he dives right into this job; closes his eyes for three seconds as he floats up from the bottom floor to the top one, leans his head back against the smooth metal wall of the elevator. 

Grips the handle of his briefcase tight as the doors slide open. 

There’s a trio of three men standing immediately outside of the elevator doors, arms crossed over their chests, brows furrowed in a way that might be comical if it weren’t so unsettling. They are all close to Steve’s height and build, although slighter and shorter; they are all dressed in the black tac gear that Pierce requires his security team to wear, identical to what Steve has on currently. They don’t look friendly. 

It’s indicative of shady business, Steve thinks as he steps forward and lets the men surround him, all of this secrecy and bullet-proof clothing. If Pierce were running a clean company, he wouldn’t be half so paranoid. 

Although he could stand to be a bit more paranoid, Steve thinks with a very tiny smirk, attaching one of the cameras he’d palmed out of his briefcase on the ride up to the inside wall of the elevator as the men turn their backs. It’s a swift movement, one that he knows nobody catches. 

Nobody, that is, except Barnes, whose soft laugh rings in Steve’s ear as he smiles to himself. 

***

Pierce smiles silkily at Steve from across his behemoth of a desk in his study, his elbows resting easily on the thick mahogany wood. He just  _ looks  _ like the kinda guy that would steal money from his own company. 

Steve listens with half an ear as Pierce runs through Steve’s list of duties. Steve knows this already; it was in the file Fury provided, and Steve has posed as head of security before, anyway. It’s standard stuff. 

Instead, he spends their brief meeting cracking open his briefcase beneath Pierce’s desk and slipping one of the tiny cameras out, and then waiting for the perfect moment to affix it to the corner of the desk. It fuses with a satisfying  _ snick.  _

Barnes makes an involuntarily impressed noise in Steve’s ear, and Steve waves cheekily at the lense of the camera, fingers wiggling by his thigh. Barnes’ snort of annoyed laughter is just as satisfying as Pierce’s look of utter oblivion.

The next one is easier: Pierce sends for one of the men to show Steve to his office—Rumlow, Pierce calls him, and Steve files that information away for later—and Rumlow does so with a couple of perfunctory grunts, leaving Steve alone in the small, gray room. Steve puts a camera on the lintel above the door, waiting for Barnes’ “ _ Yep _ ” to indicate that he has a good view from the feedback at the house. 

Personally Steve doesn’t think this camera is necessary—he can take care of himself, and it’s not like Barnes could get here in time to save him even if he did see anything happen—but it’s protocall, so he follows it. He  _ can  _ follow rules.

Another camera gets nestled behind a potted plant in the hallway leading out from Pierce’s bedroom, and then the last one goes right outside the back door, so that Steve and Barnes can see anyone who comes or goes from that way at any time of day or night. 

“ _ That it?”  _ Barnes asks, and Steve raises an eyebrow, because it’s clear Barnes is speaking through a yawn. 

Steve steps into the elevator, glancing down at his watch as he does so. It’s going on nine pm. He’s been here for over twelve hours, and he hasn’t picked up on any useful information. 

“Yeah,” Steve says quietly. He’s careful not to look at the little black shape of the camera he’d put in here earlier, suddenly hyper aware of Barnes’ eyes on him from a few blocks away. He tugs on the bottom of his thick black jacket, uncomfortable with the unperceived scrutiny. “Leaving now,” he says, grateful when the doors slide open upon the bottom level of the parking garage. He strides to his own car. “Go ahead and go to bed, Barnes.”

_ “It’s only nine,”  _ says Barnes, through what Steve is amused to hear sounds like another yawn.  _ “What am I, your grandmother? _ ” 

“You’re my husband, sweetums,” Steve says, dry. Barnes scoffs loudly. 

“ _ Yeah, yeah, _ ” he says, and it sounds like he’s moving, the staticy noises of cloth-on-cloth gumming up the connection. “ _ Hurry home, sugar, _ ” he drawls, and then he disconnects the line. 

***

Sam is sitting on his front stoop when Steve pulls up, and he waves as Steve gets out. 

Steve waves back. 

Sam stands up. 

Steve tenses up. 

“How’s it going, man?” Sam asks him, strolling over the grass between their two houses—Steve makes a mental note to rub that in Barnes’ face—with his hands in his pockets. He’s smiling, just as nice as he was last night, and if Steve were the sort of person to feel bad about lying on these missions, that guilt would be kicking in right about now. 

He pushes it down. 

“Good,” Steve says, accepting the slap on the arm Sam doles out with what he hopes is a pleasant expression. “Uh, you?”

Sam laughs. “Boy, you were right, neither of you are big talkers, are you?”

Steve tries to join in, but he knows it comes out awkward and stilted, with more genuine exhaustion than he really wanted to show. 

“Yeah,” he says, ducking his head. He’s annoyed to find that he’s blushing, and he hopes fervently that his beard covers it. “Guess not.”

“What is it Bucky said you do again?” Sam asks, tilting his head. 

“Uh.” Steve clears his throat. “Pierce’s head of security. I am.”

Sam is nodding before the words have quite left Steve’s mouth, pointing at him in apparent agreement. “Right right right,” he says. “That’s what Bucky said.”

“And you work at the VA?” Steve says somewhat awkwardly, even though he knows the answer will be yes. They went over all of this yesterday at dinner, and anyway he knew  _ before _ that of course, but oh well, time to be neighborly and everything. 

Sam nods, launching into a description of his duties at the VA, derailing into a few stories that have Steve actually laughing by the time they’re through. He legitimately likes Sam and Riley; there’s one point he and Barnes can agree on, at least. 

By the time Steve and Sam part ways, it’s almost fully dark outside, a few starks winking above them in the blue-black sky. Steve can’t remember the last time he saw stars. They’re always hidden, in the city. 

He hangs his jacket on the hall tree as he steps inside, shutting the door behind him and wandering through the hall towards the kitchen, vaguely intent on finding something to eat. There are only a few lamps on down here, so he moves a little slower than usual, careful not to kick anything; as he passes the living room he notices the TV is on, volume muted, so he ducks in to turn it off and— 

“Took you long enough.”

Steve’s gaze snaps to the couch, and he stares. Barnes is sitting there, nestled in one of the corners of the cushions, wrapped in a cocoon of blankets with only his mouth up showing. His hair is a wild nest, and there’s something heavy and sleepy about his eyes, like he’s been napping while he waited for Steve to come home. 

“Got waylaid by Sam,” Steve says, wondering why he isn’t more annoyed at the fact that Barnes has been lurking down here to… to what? Scare him? “I only work six to five on weekdays, though, after today.”

“Yeah, Rogers, I’m on this job too, I’m aware,” Barnes says, typically gruff even though he looks small and fluffy and soft in his blanket nest. There are very small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, wrinkles that are possibly smile lines. Steve feels off-kilter. 

The cadence to Barnes’ tone is teasing, has the rhythm of banter buried in the beats of his words, and Steve finds himself wanting to go along with that, finds himself wanting to tease him back. He opens his mouth to do that, to make some sort of offhand comment that certainly won’t be friendly but won’t be outright nasty either—but something goes wrong, some path between his brain and his mouth has a blockage and he spits out a sentence that he hadn’t even been thinking. 

“Well, I don’t know, it’s not like you’re the one doing the actual work here. You’re just hiding at home. You might not remember all the details.”

There is a moment where Barnes is absolutely still, staring up at Steve with a blankness in his gunmetal-gray gaze; and then he stands, shedding the layer of blankets to the floor, his broad shoulders tucked up around his ears and both fists formed tight and firm by his thighs. 

“Fuck you, Rogers,” he spits, and Steve is stunned, because his voice is shaking, actually shaking, and god, Steve doesn’t think he’s ever seen him this truly angry before. Barnes is swaying on the balls of his feat, and the expression on his face is thunderous.  _ “Fuck. You. _ ”

Steve doesn’t say anything; doesn’t know what would come out of him if he tried. 

This feels worse than their usual bickering, their usual rude comments and stinging jibes. This feels  _ personal _ , and Steve hadn’t even meant for it to be.

Barnes storms past him, knocking into Steve’s chest as he exits the living room and making Steve stumble back a few steps. His footsteps on the stairs are like gunshots. 

Steve stands there looking at the fallen blankets for a very long time. 

***

It’s a bad night.

Bucky hasn’t had one in a while. He’s been out of the hospital for eight years, has been out of that prison for longer; the memories don’t harangue his mind day in and day out anymore, hardly even sneak up on him that often. 

Which his why they’re all the more powerful when they do strike him. 

It was Rogers’ comment that got to Bucky, and he  _ knows _ that’s all it was, and he  _ knows _ that he shouldn’t let it sink down under the layers of his skin and seep into his brain like leaches but, god, the place where his flesh-and-bone arm used to be  _ aches _ , even though there aren’t any living nerves left there anymore, and every fucking time he closes his eyes, he can’t breathe with the fear that they won’t open back up again. 

Panting a little, Bucky presses himself back against his headboard, teeth clenched, and massages the mangled seam between his metal arm and his flesh shoulder. The skin there is angry, red and twisted and melted. He can still remember how that felt, in the beginning before the pain had knocked him out. It shoots through him now, glaring and vivid and  _ real,  _ and Bucky bites back a sob, jerking back so harshly that he slams the back of his skull against the wall. 

It helps. Inexplicably, that helps ground him, helps remind him that he isn’t strapped to a chair in a dirty cell, electric waves being pulsed through his brain, drugs fed through his veins, burning metal against his skin.  _ _

The sitting isn’t good, though. This position, sitting—he stumbles out of bed, taking the sweaty sheet wrapped around his legs with him, and staggers until he comes up against the cool glass of his window. He slumps against it, sliding to the floor on his knees, and presses his forehead to the windowpane. 

Bucky tells himself to breathe. One-in, two-out, one-in, two-out, over and over and over again until the painful thud of his heart calms down, and the shockwaves running down his limbs settle. 

He isn’t going to be able to sleep tonight. 

God, the window feels good against his burning head. 

He isn’t going to be able to sleep tonight. 

Bucky wishes he wasn’t alone. 

***

This is why Bucky only takes jobs that put him on the controlling side of things, and not right in the middle of the action. 

It was something he told Fury when he was hired on at SHIELD. That he wouldn’t go out in the field, that he would never consent to being in a position where he had to train a weapon against another human, but that he would plan things out, plot them, make them run smooth as clockwork. That being in something even close to a warzone would send him careening back eight years in his own mind. 

Fury agreed. It didn’t even take much convincing. Bucky is damn good at what he does. 

But nobody else knows. Bucky isn’t really friends with any of the other agents, so he’s not about to divulge the full story of his trauma just so they can understand why he works the way he works; he’s always figured they’d respect him for what he does do, and if they don’t, then they’re trash. 

Bucky supposes Rogers is trash. 

The next morning finds Bucky sitting where the night had left him, wrapped in his sheet, his cheek against the windowpane, his spine an uncomfortable curl thanks to the angle of the wall and the floor. He didn’t sleep at all, just like he’d predicted; there’s a migraine building up in that spot between his eyes, pulsing and pounding. He’s positive that he looks like shit. 

Lurching to his feet, Bucky uses his metal hand to steady himself against the wall as he sways, and closes his eyes against the dizzy spin of the room. 

He takes a moment to assess how he feels. He isn’t entirely surprised when the first word that comes to mind is  _ enraged.  _

This whole spiral was Rogers’ fault. Rogers, with his uppity comment, his stupid assumptions. He thinks Bucky’s a coward, lazy, unintelligent; Bucky just spent the night sobbing on his bedroom floor like a child because eight years ago, he had his arm sawed off in a fucking cell. 

Bucky’s flesh hand is shaking a little with the strength of his emotions—anger, sadness, pain, sheer fucking exhaustion—as he gathers up the sheet and then tosses it in a clump upon his mattress. He hadn’t even changed out of his clothes before he’d stormed up here last night, and so they’re a wrinkled mess against his body. He smooths a hand half-heartedly down his front as he tromps downstairs in search of coffee and a man to yell at. 

The coffee comes first; Bucky can smell it as he descends the stairs, rich and warm and delicious, and his feet lead him towards it before his mind even decides to. 

Rogers comes second. 

He’s standing at the counter, his back to Bucky, but Bucky can tell Rogers knows he’s there from the way his shoulders stiffen slightly. Rogers is dressed in a white t-shirt and track pants and sneakers, like he’s just come back from a run, and Bucky might laugh at him if he didn’t feel like throttling him. 

He turns around slowly, a mug of coffee in each hand, and meets Bucky’s eyes without flinching. He isn’t smiling—Rogers never smiles for real—but his eyes and the corners of his mouth look softer than Bucky has ever seen them, intentionally so, almost like he’s— 

“Barnes,” Rogers says, taking one step closer. Bucky doesn’t move back, so Rogers does it again. “I’m sorry.”

Bucky stares. 

This is so far from how he expected the conversation to go that he almost feels worse. 

“What?” he says stupidly, hands slack at his sides, chin tipped back a little bit when Rogers gets close enough that Bucky has to look up at him. Rogers hands him one of the mugs, and Bucky takes it with both hands, bringing it in close to his chest. The steam feels too warm against his overheated face. 

“I’m sorry,” Rogers repeats, and try as Bucky might, he can’t detect even a little bit of falsity in that tone, can pick up on nothing but actual intent. Rogers blinks, long and slow, and his pale eyelashes fan out over the tops of cheeks that are a little bit more pink than usual. “That was a real asshole thing for me to say, and I didn’t mean it. And I’m sorry.”

Bucky narrows his eyes, turning his head and squinting up at Rogers. His heart is back to galloping. “Yeah,” he says, swallowing past a dry throat with effort, “It really was. You’d all get shot without me.”

“I know that,” Rogers says, so earnestly that Bucky’s paranoid brain starts screaming at him to look around for the cameras, because this must be some sort of weird, twisted game show he’s on right now. “You’re the best at what you do, and without you, every one of us field agents would be dead a hundred times over, and besides, it’s not my place to question you.”

Bucky is discomfited to find that his anger is fast-dissolving. He takes a sip of his coffee before he can just automatically forgive Rogers and make a fool of himself in the process. 

“I have my reasons,” Bucky says finally, not looking away from Rogers, even when the blue of his irises feels like a bruise. “And I shouldn’t have to explain it to you. I shouldn’t be questioned.”

Rogers nods, solem. “I agree.”

Bucky nods back, feeling tired and thick and maybe a bit alarmed, but in a sort of good way that he doesn’t want to think about. He takes a longer gulp of coffee, rubbing at his sleepy eyes with the heel of one hand. 

“I’m going back to bed,” he says, backing out of the kitchen. He can still see Rogers out of one eye, and he is giving Bucky the smallest, softest smile, and  _ what. the. fuck.  _ “I’ll wake up in time to watch you run around that mansion.”

“Ok, Barnes,” Rogers says, and watches him go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *chanting* DUMBASSERY! DUMBASSERY!


	5. Chapter 5

The rest of the week goes much the same way as the first day had done: Steve gets to work, follows Pierce as he putters uselessly around his mansion, tries to stay in Barnes’ sightline, tries his best not to laugh at the way Barnes makes fun of every single person Steve walks by, and gets home in time to wave at Sam or Riley in the yard as he goes inside to takeout, or something Bucky’s cooked on Steve’s way home. 

Steve and Barnes are… well. If not on good terms, then they aren’t really exactly precisely on bad ones  _ either _ . 

Things have been different since that morning that Steve apologized. A little less tension in the air, maybe, fewer hackles raised. They don’t hang out, and Steve certainly doesn’t look forward to this job lasting as long as it’s looking like it will, but neither does he want to slap Barnes or yell at him or drive off the nearest cliff whenever he hears Barnes’ voice. 

Barnes smiles at him, sometimes, when it’s late at night and they pass each other in the hall on the way to their respective beds; just a sliver of an expression, a slow crawl of his full lips over his face, a nod as his eyes fall into shadow, but Steve always smiles back. Always remembers what it looked like as he climbs into bed. 

***

Steve, weirdly, has weekends off. 

“It’s because that’s when he does shady shit,” says Barnes wisely, waving a spoon dripping with pancake batter in Steve’s general direction. He has a stack of about ten pancakes already sitting on a plate beside his left elbow, and while he hasn’t explicately said Steve can share, Steve is really hoping he can share. “Weekends. Everybody’s gone.”

Steve nods, dropping his chin into his palm and sighing. He’s sitting on a tall stool at the counter, and whenever he shifts, the spindly legs groan a little under his weight. 

“Was planning on going up tonight,” Steve says, tracking Barnes’ movements as he flips a pancake deftly with one hand. Barnes has his hair tied up in a little bun at the back of his head with a soft purple hair tie, and Steve can’t stop looking at it. “After dark, of course. Just to see what I can see.”

“You got access to all Pierce’s cameras, right? You, and nobody else?”

“Yeah.” Pierce changed the access codes when the last head of security left—or, more accurately, was given a large sum of money by an anonymous SHIELD agent in return for their leave—and only Steve has them, a fact that is apparently a point of contention with the rest of the guards. Rumlow in particular seems especially put out by this. “But I won’t need to wipe them. I’m allowed to come and go when I see fit, I’ll just tell Pierce that I’m there to draft up the schedule for next week.”

Barnes turns and stares at Steve over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised high. “In the middle of the night,” he says flatly. “Yeah, he’ll believe that.”

Steve huffs.

“Wipe it, Rogers,” Barnes says, shooting him a little smirk as Steve slumps further against the counter in defeat. Barnes goes back to his pancakes. 

“Fine,” Steve says. He takes a sip of the coffee he brewed after his run this morning, wrinkling his nose at the way it’s gone cold. “But if he catches me, that’s what I’m saying. I’ll just tell him I couldn’t sleep ‘til I got my job done.”

Barnes, eyes still on his food, makes a low ‘hm’ sound. He’s glaring down at the skillet now, a line between his eyebrows, in what Steve has come to realize is his thinking face. 

Steve keeps quiet. Lets him think. 

“I wanna come,” he says finally. 

Steve sits up. 

“Um,” he says, and then sits silently for so long that Barnes gives him another exasperated look—although this one is tempered with a little bit of nerves, an anxiousness that Steve hasn’t seen from him before. It makes Steve wonder yet again just why Barnes doesn’t go out on missions. “Why?”

Barnes puts the empty pan in the sink, running cold water over it that wafts up in a shock of sizzling steam. He turns to face Steve, arms crossing over his chest, and meets his eyes. 

“I got a few more cameras I want to install, and I can’t tell you where I want them until I see the place myself. Plus, I’m better with computers than you—don’t fight me on that, Rogers, you can knock a guy’s lights out but I can hack into his bank account—so I can do some digging while you, I dunno, patrol the area.” He shifts back on his heels, hip jutted out, eyes boring like drills into Steve’s. “You can’t technically tell me no.”

Steve, a grin fighting its way up onto his lips, takes another sip of coffee to hide his expression. 

“No,” he says, clearing his throat. “I suppose not.”

“Great,” says Barnes, but he doesn’t sound at  _ all _ like he thinks it’s great—in fact he sounds a bit more like he’s anticipating being shot and killed, but whatever. He jerks a nod at Steve, and then picks up the plate of pancakes, dumping a few onto the empty plate in front of Steve. “Eat up.”

Steve lets this smile go. 

***

Agent Steve Rogers is  _ not _ a good driver. 

“What the  _ fuck  _ Rogers?” Bucky yelps, his fingers digging into the skin of his thighs as Rogers takes yet another too-tight turn, sending Bucky careening into his door. “How the hell are you allowed to have a license?” 

“What?” Rogers says indignantly, looking over at Bucky instead of  _ keeping his eyes on the goddamn road _ . “What do you mean?”

Bucky groans loudly, letting his head thunk forward onto the dashboard as he screws his eyes shut. He’s not a religious guy, but Jesus Christ, he’s about to start praying. Rogers is gonna get them killed. 

“ _ What _ ?” Rogers says again, louder, a hint of a laugh in his tone. He slams the breaks, and Bucky’s head thuds gently against the hard plastic, and Bucky’s heart thuds gently against the confines of his ribcage, and Rogers laughs again, this one out loud. 

Bucky’s traitorous mouth actually starts to smile, but he tamps that shit down quickly. There’s no smiling at the enemy to be had in the House of Barnes. 

“Sorry, pal,” Steve says, and his voice sounds lighter than Bucky’s ever heard it, here in this car in the middle of the night while Rogers is trying to murder Bucky. (That’s telling, isn’t it?) There’s a little bit of Brooklyn to the slope and jut of his words, an accent that sparks something warm and familiar in Bucky’s chest, and he buries his face in his hands so Steve doesn’t see how poorly he’s keeping it together. “Guess you’re used to limousines, huh, fancy guy?”

Bucky raises his head, and a laugh shakes out of him despite himself. “Where did that come from?” he splutters, trying—and failing—to glare at the self-satisfied tilt of Rogers’ grin. 

“You know,” says Rogers, giving Bucky a long glance out of the corner of his eye. He almost runs a red light, stopping at the last minute, and a car behind them beeps loudly. “Fancy. You. Your clothes. Fancy.”

Bucky looks down at himself. He wouldn’t say  _ fancy _ , really, although compared to Rogers’ typical wardrobe, yeah. Bucky’s wearing a black velour tracksuit that uncultured people call ‘ugly’ and he calls ‘freedom of expression,’ unzipped over a black crop top that has  _ sad bitch  _ pasted on it in black glitter, and pair of chunky white sneakers that he found at Goodwill that he loves more than any human he knows. 

“SHIELD provided all this,” Bucky says, conveniently leaving out the fact that these are shoes he wore from home. He bets Agent Hill picked out his wardrobe. They’ve had more than one conversation weighing the merits of designer brands versus unique thrifted finds. She gets him. “It’s not mine.”

“Yeah, maybe,” says Rogers, and this red light has been going on for a long time, and Steve’s eyes are still fixed upon Bucky, running slowly up and down the length of him where he’s stretched out in the passenger seat, and Bucky’s skin feels annoyingly hot. “But I’ve seen you between jobs, Barnes. You look like this all the time, when you’ve got a choice.”

Oh. Huh. 

Bucky looks at Rogers until he catches Bucky’s eye, and then he smirks, slow and quiet. “Gotta look good for my man,” he says, and winks broadly, and laughs when Steve looks away with a roll of his eyes. 

The light turns to green, and Rogers takes two more ridiculous turns, and then— 

They’re there. 

Whatever nervousness Rogers had managed to distract Bucky from on the ride up is back in full force, slamming into the center of his chest in a tight knot that makes it hard to breathe. It’s stupid: Pierce is in bed, Rogers can disable the cameras, Bucky has a handgun tucked in the waistband of his sweats. It’s going to be  _ fine.  _

But none of that changes the fact that Bucky hasn’t been out in the field since—ever. None of it changes the fact that Bucky hasn’t fired a gun in eight years, and even though he’s carrying one, he thinks something inside him might snap if he had to use it. 

“...Barnes?”

Bucky jerks a little, gaze snapping upwards to where Steve is standing outside of the car, poking his head in through the open doorway. There’s a thin line of concern across his forehead. 

“Sorry,” says Bucky shortly. He follows Steve into the building. 

***

The ride up is smooth and quiet, a little bit tense. Bucky stands a few inches away from Steve, and he watches their reflection in the shiny chrome doors, conscious of the way their shoulders brush. 

The lights above them feel vivid and revealing. Bucky is glad that they doors slide open onto darkness. 

“Follow me,” Rogers murmurs, and Bucky rolls his eyes behind Rogers’ back as they get out, regardless of the fact that Bucky is most definitely not leading the way. Rogers doesn’t have to make such a big deal out of it, though. 

The lights are turned off, so Bucky can’t really see much of his surroundings, but the floor feels slick beneath his sneakers, and the dim light of Rogers’ phone reflects off of what seems like an unnecessary amount of glass fixtures to be in a house. Bucky rolls his eyes again. Rich people.

Rogers leads them up a few flights of stairs and down a few winding hallways, his footsteps silent and sure, and while Bucky would never admit this out loud, he is grateful that he isn’t here alone. There’s something reassuring about the veritable wall of Rogers’ back before him: the girth of his wide-set shoulders, the width of his biceps, flexing a little as he opens a door and glances over his shoulder just to check that Bucky’s still there. Steve could probably pick Bucky up without any trouble, and Bucky isn’t exactly tiny. Steve could probably fit those big hands around Bucky’s waist, lift him up in one even motion— 

“Oof.” 

Bucky grunts softly as he slams into Rogers’ chest, forehead connecting with the angular plane of Rogers’ clavicle. His hands come down on Bucky’s shoulders as Bucky rebounds off of him; Bucky blinks up at him, guilty, and he still can’t see Rogers’ face very well in the darkness of this new room, but he thinks he can see the pink flash of his lips ticking up at the corners, a faint smile. 

“Alright, Barnes?” Steve murmurs. His voice is very low, strangely intimate with how quietly he’s speaking, and how close his face is. 

“Fine,” says Bucky, and backs away before the warmth of Rogers’ palms can sink through Bucky’s clothing and his skin and nestle into his bones. 

Chuckling slightly—bastard—Rogers flicks the light on, flooding the room they’re in with fluorescents bright enough to make Bucky flinch. 

It’s Rogers’ office; Bucky recognizes it from the video feed he’s been looking at for the past five days. Even if he hadn’t, though, the ostentatiously-huge desk sitting in the center of the room would be enough of a clue. 

Rogers crosses to the desk, pulling the plush black computer chair out and gesturing with one hand towards it. “Have a seat,” he says. 

“Oh, how gallant,” Bucky drawls, winking broadly at Steve as he drops into the chair and scoots himself up to the edge of the desk. He tips his head against the back of the chair to look up at Steve, liking the little bit of half-annoyed pinkness that crawls across Steve’s cheekbones at Bucky’s antics. Bucky wonders if it extends all the way down the pale skin hidden beneath Steve’s beard. It probably does. 

_ So  _ easy to rile up. 

“Anything for you, darling,” Steve says. He sits in the chair across from Bucky’s on the opposite side of the desk, pulling one of two— _ two _ —laptops toward himself, and powering it on as he speaks. “Now get to work, Kevin Mitnick.”

Bucky kicks Rogers’ ankle, but it’s light, and all he gets in reaction is a twitch of Steve’s eyebrow. Ah, well. 

Bucky cracks his knuckles. 

Time to get to work. 

They operate mostly in quiet, nothing but the clatter of computer keys filling the room around them. 

It’s. It’s frustrating. 

Bucky can’t find anything on this guy. Every article he reads seems firmly against him, and he does own a bunch of fucking nuclear power plants which, you know, sucks ass, but nobody can actually  _ pin him down.  _ Or at least nobody has tried, because he’s a squabillionair. 

Even when Bucky gets into Pierce’s bank account—he does a delighted little wiggle in his chair when he achieves that one, not missing the way Rogers grins indulgently at him before going back to his own screen—he can’t find anything amiss. No big expenses going out irregularly, nothing unusual. 

He’s awfully normal. He’s a racist sexist homophobic conservative fuck, according to the one speech of his that Bucky watches on YouTube wherein he suggests something just this side of genocide to keep crime off of the streets and all but endorses HYDRA, but unfortunately this isn’t exactly out of the norm of old rich white men. 

“I don’t know what SHIELD saw,” Bucky grumbles, closing a window and opening another one, his fingers moving lighting-fast across the keyboard, “but I sure as hell can’t find anything.”

Steve nods, brow furrowed as he stares down at the laptop. The screen lights his face with a soft blue glow, making his irises iridescent. 

“Neither can I,” he says, sounding pissed. He hits ‘enter’ very loudly. “Nothing this whole week.”

“Could be they were wrong. Not like it’s happened before but there’s a first time for everything, right? I mean—”

Someone knocks on the door, and every single nerve in Bucky’s body leaps to attention. 

Rogers’ spine immediately snaps up straight and stiff and tall, and his jaw clenches as he calmly sets his laptop down, rising to his feet. He looks enormous, especially with Bucky sitting down here, looking up at him from this angle.

_ “It’s ok, _ ” Steve mouths to Bucky, before going to the door and pulling it open. 

He shifts into a different man when he meets Pierce’s eye on the other side, shedding the Rogers that Bucky’s gotten to know a bit better over this past week and taking on somebody a whole lot more professional, a whole lot more intimidating. The look he is giving Pierce is mediated and calm, almost completely blank, and it makes Bucky shiver again, something deep that he doesn’t like. 

“Hello, sir,” Steve says, and Bucky works hard to keep his face blank. He even sounds different. 

Bucky hates that it makes him feel worse. 

“Rogers,” says Pierce, that same oily tone that Bucky remembers from the clip he just watched, a sound that turns Bucky’s stomach. Pierce is much shorter than Steve, physically a million times less imposing, and yet seeing him there, seeing the look he’s giving Steve, makes Bucky’s trembling hands yearn for the cold weight of his glock. “What are you doing here so late?”

“Just drafting up next week’s schedule, sir,” Steve says—and even though this is an objectively terrible situation, Bucky still takes a moment to feel deep sadness over the fact that Steve is going to be so fucking smug about getting to use that excuse. 

“Ah.” Pierce’s eyes slide past Steve, come to rest upon Bucky. Bucky tries not to shake. “And who is this?”

Bucky wonders if he imagines the way Rogers shifts to shield Bucky from the worst of Pierce’s gaze. 

“This,” says Steve, backing into the room and putting himself closer to Bucky with a sunshine-smile that Bucky can’t fully see, “is my husband.”

Pierce won’t stop staring at him. It slithers beneath Bucky’s skin. 

Bucky stands, but doesn’t come closer. “Mr. Pierce,” he says, hoping his voice is steady, hoping his knuckles aren’t white where they grip the edge of the desk, hoping, hoping, hoping. “How nice to meet you.”

Pierce takes a few more steps into Rogers’ office. Rogers comes to Bucky’s side of the desk and he slips his arm around Bucky’s waist, hooking the crook of elbow around Bucky’s hips. Bucky presses into him, telling himself it’ll look more natural if he does. 

“Nice to meet you too, ah…” he lifts an eyebrow, glancing at Steve to get Bucky’s name, and oh god, no, Bucky fucking  _ hates him.  _

“Bucky,” says Steve, and Bucky is sure that he isn’t imagining the faint hint of ice beneath Steve’s tone. “This is my husband, Bucky.”

“Bucky,” repeats Pierce. The set of his mouth looks like he’s laughing at a joke that nobody else would understand, but is at everyone else’s expense. He rakes his cold eyes up and down Bucky’s crop top-clad torso, and it doesn’t feel anything like it did when Steve made that same gesture earlier. Steve’s arm tightens around Bucky. “He lets you use the nice computer, does he?”

“Well, you know what they say,” Bucky says, making his tone as sweet as possible. He tucks his head into the curve of Steve’s broad shoulder. “Solitaire just ain’t the same on a laptop, sir.”

Pierce’s mouth pinches. “I’m sure not,” he says. 

“Is there a problem, sir?” Steve asks, easily sliding into the conversation. Bucky sags against him in thanks. “Buck and I can clear out if you need us too. I just wanted to get them done tonight so I don’t have to worry about it tomorrow morning, but—”

“It’s fine,” Pierce says shortly. The expression on his face is a smile only in definition of movement. “Have a good night, gentlemen.” He looks at Bucky. “It’s lovely to meet the man that’s captured stoic Steve Rogers’ heart at last.”

“Oh,” says Bucky. “Um.”

Pierce shuts the door behind him before Bucky is forced to muddle through the rest of whatever that sentence was going to be. 

They stand like that for a few more moments, Bucky nestled in close against Steve’s side, the adrenaline pumping through his veins making him gently shake. He wants to be able to yell at Rogers for something, but this wasn’t even his fault, and Bucky isn’t even mad at him, not really. It’s hard to be mad at the man who is half-hugging you, and being so delightfully warm while he does it.

“Well,” Steve says finally, voice vibrating low against Bucky. His hand squeezes Bucky’s metal bicep lightly, and then he steps away, leaving Bucky feeling loose and unmoored. “I think we can call it a night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was objectively the best chapter because Bucky wore a crop top, I don't make the rules


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE I'm adding a second posting day to our usual schedule because I'm enthUSIASTIC ABOUT IT (and it needs to be done by the time I post my Big Bang) so HERE YOU GO DARLINGS

Sunday is a quiet, lazy day. Steve does nothing to change that. 

This new peace that exists between him and Bucky feels too tentative to test the limits of just yet, too new to threaten; he likes the fact that they can be in the same room without causing the other bodily harm now more than he thought he would. He likes the fact that Bucky can curl up on the sofa with a book and Steve can lounge in the armchair with his sketchpad and neither of them raise their voices one time. 

He likes Barnes. Who woulda thought. 

Of course he’s never going to  _ tell _ Barnes this, because that would be ridiculous, but he’s grateful of it all the same. Even if this mission doesn’t go anywhere—which it’s looking like it might not, Jesus  _ Christ _ —it’s nice to think that he and Bucky might yet be able to make it through this as… well, not friends. Acquaintances who don’t want to stab each other. 

The day crawls forward slowly. Steve pulls his legs up in the armchair and hides his sketchbook so Bucky won’t see. Steve’s drawing him, but it isn’t personal: there just isn’t anything else as interesting in this room. 

Around noon, Steve closes his sketchbook and stands, stretching his arms above his head until his spine cracks pops with a series of cracks. He sighs loudly. 

Barnes doesn’t look. He’s on his back on the couch, book laying open on his stomach, eyes closed, hair fanning out on the cushion behind his head. Steve can’t tell if he’s asleep or not, but he’s certainly resting, the lines of his face smooth, the set of his mouth soft. Steve doesn’t disturb him. 

Bucky went shopping again on Wednesday, Steve is pretty sure—either way their fridge is stocked with enough to last men their size probably another week, so it’s easy for Steve to scrounge up the ingredients for grilled cheese. 

He smiles to himself while he does it, flipping the sandwiches to get the golden-brown on both sides. Steve can’t cook to save his life—nothing but this, that is. His ma taught him before she died and he left for the army, her small hands buttering bread and stacking cheese. This reminds him of her. 

Steve couldn’t make them for a long time after she died. The ache that always sprang up in memory of her is dimmer now, though. 

Barnes wanders into the kitchen just as Steve is sliding two sandwiches onto two plates for each of them, rubbing his eyes with his palms and leaning against the counter near Steve. He looks sleepy, his shirt wrinkled—ah so it  _ was _ a nap—his hair a mess. 

Steve turns around to hide his smile. 

“Hungry?” Steve asks, taking a plate in each hand. He slides one across the counter to Bucky, and they sit opposite each other like they always do. 

Bucky pounces upon his plate in response, and half a sandwich is gone by the time he finally makes it up onto the stool. 

Steve laughs. Barnes flips him off, but his cheeks are round with a smile, a little bit pink. 

Halfway through finishing up, the doorbell rings, and Barnes meets Steve’s eyes across the counter, eyebrows raised high. 

They’re both naturally paranoid—have to be, with what they do—so they stiffen, immediately on alert at the noise. Bucky starts to slide off of his stool, but Steve stands hurriedly, going to the doorway before Bucky has to. “I’ll get it,” he says, but Barnes follow him anyway. 

Steve peers out the window before he opens the door, but the front porch is empty. He sets his hand on the doorknob, turning it—but Bucky’s metal fingers come down upon his before he can open the door all of the way. 

“Rogers,” Bucky says, voice low and tight with apprehension. Steve remembers the way Bucky had seemed so upset whenever Steve insulted him for being cautious, remembers the sharp fear that had radiated off of him last night in Steve’s office when things started to go wrong. 

“I’ll just check,” Steve says, turning in to him, close enough that their chests almost touch. Barnes’ mouth is a grim line. “It’s better to know now then later.”

Barnes holds Steve’s gaze for a second more, his slate-colored eyes wide, before he lets out a small puff of air and steps back with a nod. 

Slowly, Steve opens the door. 

He scans the bushes surrounding their porch, the sidewalk, the yard—

There. On the front steps. 

“Oh my god,” Steve says with a laugh that’s more relief than anything. He bends at the waist, picking up the plate sitting there, grinning as he turns around to show Bucky. 

“Cookies, Barnes,” Steve says, tilting it forward to show him. “Nothing to worry about…”

He trails off, staring at the way Bucky’s shoulders are hunched all the way up to his ears, his hands gripping his elbows. His eyes are still wide and wary, and he’s standing far back from Steve, and Steve knew everyone in this line of work was a paranoid bastard but this is seriously too much. 

“You ok?” Steve asks him, shutting the door and stepping closer. 

“You really think somebody just decided to leave us some cookies?” Barnes asks, and there’s some of that old bite behind his words, a snap that Steve hasn’t heard yet on this languid day. Steve blinks at him, surprised. 

“Well,” he says, floundering a little, because… yeah? “It’s probably a housewarming gift,” he says, and sure enough, he spots a note tucked in among the cookies. He pulls it out. “’Glad to have you in the neighborhood,’” he reads, raising an eyebrow at Barnes. Barnes scowls. “’We haven’t had a chance to meet you yet, but we’d be delighted if you’d come over to ours for pizza and beer tonight.’ Signed ‘Natasha and Clint.’” He lowers the note. “See? Just being friendly.”

Bucky doesn’t look fully convinced, but at least his scowl is a little less powerful. “In my experience,” he says, “people aren’t usually friendly for no reason.”

Steve watches him walk back into the kitchen, his steps heavier than they’ve been all day. He wonders once more just what Barnes has been through in his life to make him like that. Steve’s life hasn’t been easy, not by a longshot, but he has a feeling it’s nothing compared to what Barnes has been through, and he’s surprised at the odd flare of protective anger that he feels at that thought: he thinks about Pierce, and the way Steve had wanted to hit him when he’d spoken to Bucky like that last night. 

Steve’s always been too loyal, too fast. 

He follows Bucky into the kitchen, setting the plate down carefully by Bucky’s elbow. Bucky, finishing his grilled cheese, either doesn’t notice Steve or just chooses not to acknowledge him; he’s angry… not angry. Unsettled. On edge. For once, nothing of those bad emotions are directed at Steve, and this fact makes Steve itch to do something helpful. 

“They were in your file, weren’t they?” Steve asks carefully, sliding back onto his stool. He watches the top of Bucky’s dark head, bent so that Steve can’t see his face. He wants to brush those curls back from Barnes’ cheeks, he thinks absently. “Natasha and Clint?”

Bucky grunts, and Steve chooses to take that for the affirmative. 

Of course, he already knew that they were; SHIELD never shirks on collecting private information on people and distributing it to their agents. He just wants to confirm. 

“Married for seven years,” Steve begins to recite, peeling back the plastic wrap. The cookies look delicious: chocolate chip, still slightly warm. They smell even better than they look. “They own a sporting goods store. They met in college.”

Barnes peers up at Steve through his lashes, and his expression is flat, although his eyebrow does twitch when Steve picks up a cookie. 

“Probability of either of them poisoning our food: very low,” Steve finishes, taking a bite. He was right. Tasty. 

Bucky rolls his eyes at Steve. “Reckless idiot,” he says, but it’s mild. Steve can’t bring himself to be annoyed.

“That’s me,” Steve says, talking with his mouth full. He nudges the plate closer to Bucky with the tips of his fingers, and he is disproportionately delighted at the lingering look Bucky gives the cookies. 

“You’re disgusting,” Bucky says primly, but he snags a cookie off of the plate anyway, and Steve thinks he catches the hint of a smile as he slides off of his stool and turns back towards the living room. 

Steve grins. He cleans up. 

***

“Barnes!” The rap of Steve’s knuckles is loud against the bathroom door, and Bucky huffs dramatically as he finishes braiding a section of his hair and secures it quickly around the back of his head with a tiny, clear elastic band, joined up with the other thin braid to make a circlet around the crown of his head. “We have to be over there in ten minutes!”

Bucky gives himself one last look in the mirror, adjusting the hem of his shirt over the cut of his black jeans, before throwing the bathroom door and glaring at Rogers. 

“It takes time to look hot,” he grumbles. Although, he thinks with some annoyance, apparently not, because all Steve is wearing is a white t-shirt and blue jeans and that warm-looking leather jacket, and yet he looks like something straight out of Bucky’s lonely gay fantasies. 

Rogers give him a half-assed glare, faint enough that Bucky lets him lead the way down the steps and out the door without comment. 

Once they hit the sidewalk, Rogers reaches for Bucky’s right hand with his left, weaving their fingers together with ease. Bucky glances at him out of the corner of his eye, a little surprised, but again he keeps uncharacteristically silent. They _ are  _ pretending to be married, after all. Married couples do this. A lot, probably. 

“Remember the story?” Steve asks him, stepping closer as they cross the street. He’s looking down at Bucky fondly, smiling like they’re saying something cute instead of unspooling all the details of their elaborate lie, and the dichotomy of it all makes Bucky want to laugh. 

“Of course I do,” he says. He swings their hands a little between their thighs, and Steve huffs slightly with a laugh. “We met in the city. I was working at a coffee shop and you came in every day, and you fell head-over-heels for my dashing good looks and my witty conversation and my flashy arm and my great ass.”

“Something like that,” Steve says, dryly amused. 

“We’ve been married for eight years,” Bucky says as they make their way up the sidewalk leading to Clint and Natasha’s house. “We moved here for your job. I’m a freelance writer and I work from home, so it doesn’t matter to me where we live, right, dear?”

Steve rings the doorbell and then turns to Bucky, placing a large, warm, beard-scratchy kiss against Bucky’s cheek, and  _ what the fuck, _ why does he always do that when Bucky least expects it?

“That’s right, my love,” Steve says, laughing at what must be a shocked expression on Bucky’s face, right as the door swings open. 

“Oh, hey!” says a man—presumably Clint—his blond hair sticking up in about seven hundred different directions, his purple t-shirt very many sizes too big for him. He smiles broadly, and then waves at them for good measure. “You’re here!” he says, like it’s a surprise or something. He calls back over his shoulder into the recesses of the house. “Nat, they’re here!” 

“Uh,” says Rogers. “Hi.”

“Hi!” Clint says brightly. He looks at him for a second, and they look back, lost, before Clint starts slightly and begins to motion at them. “Come in, come in!” he says, herding them over the threshold and into a room to the left. 

There’s a small, gorgeous, redheaded woman sitting on the large couch in the living room, leaning forward on her elbows with her fingers sunk deep in the shaggy fur of the dog sitting between her knees. She smiles at them as they come in, her eyes darting over Steve and Bucky’s faces before dropping down to their linked hands and then flicking back up again. 

“Dog,” says Clint, dropping to the floor next to Natasha’s feet and pressing his face into the top of the dog’s head. Natasha gives him a look that’s equal parts fond and exasperated, standing and coming over to Rogers and Bucky with her hand extended. 

“Welcome,” she says, and her small hand feels cool and smooth in Bucky’s bigger one. When Steve shakes her hand, his palm completely swallows hers up. “I’m Natasha. That’s Clint and Lucky.”

Steve and Bucky introduce themselves, an action that seems redundant given the fact that one of these people—probably Natasha—somewhat creepily left a plate of cookies on their steps and bolted this morning. 

“We have to stick to the living room,” Natasha says. “We’re remodeling the rest of the house, and it’s a mess.”

The three of them get situated on the couch—Clint and Lucky opting for the floor—and Steve snakes an arm around Bucky’s waist as soon as they do so. Bucky appreciates it. He feels on edge in this house, hyperaware; it isn’t that Natasha and Clint aren’t kind, because, as he discovers over the next few hours of eating and drinking and bad-television-watching, they are—it’s that Bucky just feels supremely  _ watched.  _ Natasha’s sharp gaze keeps flickering between him and Steve, pausing to rest on the places where their bodies touch, and Bucky finds himself inching closer and closer to his fake husband as the evening wears on, if only to keep up the ruse. 

Clint and Natasha are good company. They’re an odd couple: Clint, with his scattered, messy, mildly irresponsible mindset, and Natasha, who is definitely in the top three most put-together people Bucky has ever met. But they get along well, and they seem to really love each other even if they each express it in vastly different ways. 

And they’re not afraid to serve guests shitty pizza and beer while watching reality television in their unfinished living room, so that gains them points in Bucky’s book. 

“So Bucky,” Natasha says, reclined back against the opposite arm of the couch that Steve and Bucky are nestled against. “You’re a writer, isn’t that what you said?”

And there’s that look at him. Her face is pleasantly flat, but her eyes are peering into his fucking soul. 

“Uh, yes,” Bucky says, cursing internally because wow, way to sound confident. “Yeah, I am.”

“Must be nice to work from home,” Clint says from the floor. He’s feeding bites of pizza to his one-eyed dog. Nobody has questioned it so far. 

“Pretty great,” Bucky says, and at least he can be honest about that. He smiles, getting into the story a little. “I always wanted to write, even when I was in high school, even before I joined up. So it’s nice to have a career that’s as quiet and fulfilling as this one, now.”

He stops, clearing his throat. This is half truth, half wishful thinking: writing had always been his plan, but everything in his life had been derailed by his military service. 

Steve’s hand, resting as it is on Bucky’s hip, squeezes gently. He is otherwise still. 

“What made you join the army?” Natasha asks quietly, still looking at Bucky with that same intensity. 

It’s a forward question, and Bucky suspects she knows that. He doesn’t have to answer; he can deflect, and it wouldn’t be rude. 

But nobody’s asked him that in a long time. 

“My parents and my sister all died in an accident while I was in high school,” he says, looking at the rip in his jeans that rests over his knees. He fiddles with it, suddenly jittery, uncomfortable with the weight of every pair of eyes in the room resting upon his face. He takes a deep breath, inhaling through the tightness in his chest that still comes whenever he thinks of that day, and keeps going. 

“I was sort of… I was lost, without them. Didn’t have any other family, didn’t have any money, grades weren’t good enough to get me into college on a full scholarship. Felt like the army was my only option.” He shrugs, picking at the threads around that tear, worrying at it and worrying at it until it starts to rip and then—and then Steve’s big hand comes down over his, fingers curling around Bucky’s, and Bucky stills. Leans back into him. Breathes out, long and slow. “So I joined the army.”

Recruitment officers had come to his high school, talking big of things that lost, orphaned kids like him couldn’t resist. Nobody had ever told him about what comes after. 

On the floor, Clint shifts to his knees, resting his elbow on the cushion next to Natasha’s thigh. She lets her fingers trail over the curve of his shoulder gently, still looking evenly at Bucky and Steve. “Do you regret it?”

Bucky opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He doesn’t know what to say. Certainly not the truth, because the truth is,  _ yes.  _ He regrets it every damn day. He regrets fighting in a war he didn’t believe in, he regrets wasting his life being tortured and then living with the aftermath, when he could have made something of himself in a field he actually cared about. 

But he can’t say that. He can’t be that honest here, especially to these people he hardly knows, people who, on second thought, should definitely not be this interested in him. 

“Let’s not spend an evening talking about regrets,” Steve cuts in smoothly, and Bucky physically wilts with relief. Steve strokes a thumb over Bucky’s metal knuckles in understanding, and the pressure is smooth and settling and steady. “Unless you want to?”

“No thank you,” Bucky says, trying to laugh it off and likely failing miserably. 

“The only regret I have is that I fed Lucky most of my pizza,” Clint says, changing the subject with a surprising amount of tact and steering the conversation into much safer waters. 

Bucky still feels Natasha’s eyes on him every so often, the cool pressure of her probing gaze making him feel flayed open in a terrifying way, but he doesn’t let go of Steve’s hand, and he doesn’t open his mouth again. 

***

They’re quiet on the walk home, fingers threaded together, steps thudding gently in sync over the moonlit pavement. Steve is big and warm against Bucky’s left side, a welcome presence compared to the brisk October chill. 

Bucky looks up at him as they step into a pool of yellow light, flickering down sporadically from the dying streetlight above them. Moths dance around the bulb of the light, casting tiny shadows that dip and swim across Steve’s complexion. His lashes brush his cheeks when he blinks, pausing in his steps to turn towards Bucky. 

“Everything ok?” Steve asks. 

Somewhere overhead, clouds move over the moon, casting the rest of the street in darkness. They stand in one of the few circles of brightness, isolated like an island. 

“Why’d you join the army?” Bucky asks. 

It’s out of his mouth before he realized he was going to ask it, before he realized he even  _ wanted  _ to ask it, but he doesn’t try to take the question back. Steve doesn’t have to tell him, of course, and Bucky’s confident that he knows that. But Bucky really is curious. 

Steve watches Bucky for a second. The trim of his beard frames his lips perfectly, shows the thin line of white divots that his teeth leave as he bites them. “Can we keep walking?” he asks. 

Bucky turns, and they fall into step again. He’s aware of Steve’s movements even as they cross the street, plunging into darkness. 

“My mother died,” Steve says finally. “She was all I had.”

Bucky looks at him on instinct, wanting to see the expression on his face, wanting to—to verify. But the clouds are still too thick to let any moonlight in, and Steve’s expression is hidden. 

“Not so different from me, then,” Bucky says softly. He feels weird and hollow through the center of his chest, like there’s too much wind blowing about in there, casting him in directions he probably shouldn’t be going. He feels the calluses of Steve’s hand brushing against the sensitive plates of his metal fingers. “When it comes down to it.”

They step into another pool of light, and Bucky realizes that he hasn’t looked away from Steve yet—because Steve is looking at him, too. 

“No,” Steve says quietly. 

They go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're about to wander into a pine forest my friends


	7. Chapter 7

In the morning, Steve and Bucky brush their teeth side-by-side in the big bathroom, wash their faces with matching washcloths. Bucky’s morning hair is curly and wild, messy around his face, and he looks soft and good to hold. 

Steve’s eyes meet Bucky’s in the mirror before him, and it’s easier than facing him head-on with nothing between them. The layer of glass is protection. 

So you wanted to be a writer,” Steve says, resting his hands against the porcelain lip of the sink. 

“I want a lot of things,” Bucky answers. His voice is deep, scratchy with sleep. He looks away. 

***

“We’ll go out today I think, Captain Rogers.”

Steve, who is admittedly not paying very much attention as he stands with his arms crossed outside Pierce’s open office door, once again thanks his training because otherwise he would’ve jumped out of his skin. He finds himself embarrassingly relieved that Bucky has no reason to be watching the cams today. 

“Sir?”

Pierce gives Steve that tight-lipped smile. “It’s been a while since I checked up on things,” he says, coming to stand in the doorway. “And I haven’t given you the proper tour yet, have I?”

Steve nods his head politely, a non-answer if ever there were one. That’s a good thing about this job: his stoicism is usually a requirement. 

Confident that Bucky will get the blip on Steve’s tracker that means he’s changing location, Steve follows Pierce down into the garage, accepting the keys to Pierce’s goddamn porsche or whatever and pulling them smoothly out onto the road. 

Steve knows where the nearest Pierce Plant is, because even if it wasn’t literally his job to be aware of that, he’s a resident of New York. The outline of the plant is a part of the traditional city skyline now, as much a part of their landscape as the Empire State building, or the Flatiron. He lets Pierce give him directions anyway. 

Pierce’s plants are bigger than any that existed before it, behemoths of smog and concrete, tall and wide and rambling. The whole plant is gated off with huge steel walls, and Steve rolls to a stop, staring up at the gray mass before him. 

“Go on,” Pierce says, looking forward, dismissive in his lack of eye contact. “You’re in the system.”

Good to know. 

Steve rolls down his window, leaning out until he can press his palm to the flat black screen affixed to the stand beside the wall. It blinks electric green, buzzing slightly beneath his hand, and he hears a subtle click as the gate is activated. 

“Captain Rogers,” says a robotic voice, even and mechanical and vaguely caucasian, close in tone to the disembodied butler Steve has heard Tony Stark has in his tower. He wants to roll his eyes. The antics of people rolling in money are a mystery to him. “Welcome to Pierce Plant.”

“Thanks,” Steve says, hoping he sounds a little less wry than he feels, and pulls forward as the gates swing smoothly inward. 

“Remarkable, isn’t it,” Pierce muses, eyes lifted skyward as they inch closer to the first of six barrel-like smoke stacks looming before them. “The wonders of modern technology.”

“Sir,” Steve murmurs after a moment of silence that implies Pierce is done. He keeps his tone deferential as he pulls into an empty spot with a sign above it that reads PRESIDENT. Steve goes to unbuckle, but Pierce sets a cool hand upon his forearm and Steve freezes, instantly wary. 

“Are you a man of science, Captain Rogers?” 

The hairs on the back of Steve’s neck lift, a creeping sensation that makes him want to shiver. He keeps himself still. 

“I’ve never had a mind for it, sir,” he settles upon, voice cautiously modulated. 

Pierce’s eyes are unsettlingly translucent. “But you believe in advancement, do you not?” Pierce asks. “You believe in doing whatever it takes to achieve the greater good, even if it goes against what everyone thinks is right? You believe in eliminating threats, even unconventionally? You believe in the miracle of control?”

It isn’t so much Pierce’s words that alight a quiet fear within Steve, but the way in which he says them. Control. That’s the word that sticks in Steve’s head, that gets under his skin the most. Yes, he believes in doing what’s right; but he never controls anyone if he doesn’t have to. He’s been controlled enough in his life to know that isn’t right. 

But he isn’t his own man, here at this job. His own opinions don’t matter. 

“Of course,” Steve says. 

Pierce smiles. He removes his hand. “I’m very glad to hear that,” he says. 

***

Pierce walks Steve on a carefully constructed scaffold around his plant, pointing out the various elements, the hundreds of people in smoke-stained clothing scurrying below them like ants though the heavy air. It makes Steve sick to his stomach. 

There’s something other than fraud going on here. 

“This,” says Pierce, his eyebrows a placid line as he looks up at Steve and places his hand flat on a nearly-invisible gray door set into the side of the building, “is a room for development. A laboratory, if you will.” He laughs like he’s said something funny. He has not. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t show you that room, Captain, I’m sure. It’s bad luck to give away half finished products too soon.”

Steve laughs, even as he makes a note to come back here as soon as he can. 

_“That whole sentence was shady as fuck.”_

Steve’s jaw clenches as Bucky’s voice comes crackling into his ear, a little bit slurred and distorted, but he doesn’t show any other outward signs of being startled. He didn’t think Bucky would have his comm on today. Steve has his on at all times, of course—just in case—but Bucky alternates turning his off and on, and Steve had figured that today would be an ‘off’ day. 

“Yes, of course,” Steve says, a bit of bite to his voice as he looks Pierce in the eye. He hears Bucky’s chuckle in his ear, low and a little gruff, and ignores the way it makes him want to smile. 

“I always knew I could count on you, Captain,” Pierce says. 

Steve inclines his head. 

Bucky is silent again as Steve and Pierce make their way back down to the car, something Steve is perfectly fine with, even though his sassy asides are one of the only interesting parts of this whole damn job. Steve and Pierce climb wordlessly into the car, watching together as the gate opens with a grind of hinges. Steve pulls through and onto the highway, and the plant grows small in his rearview mirror. 

It feels heavy in the car between them, loaded with whatever words Pierce is waiting to drop like a bomb upon Steve’s head. Steve sits with his spine ramrod straight, hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. 

“So,” says Pierce, and it’s enough like he thinks they’re friends that Steve almost can’t believe it. “Mr. Barnes. He’s quite a catch, isn’t he?”

Steve goes still. 

He feels the same way he’d felt when Pierce found him and Bucky in the office that night, the same way he’d felt when Bucky had been so obviously uncomfortable talking about his past, the same way he keeps feeling whenever he thinks about Bucky Barnes: fierce. Protective. Very much not like he hates him. 

“I’m very lucky,” Steve says, hating the way he sounds like he wants to punch something, hating the fact that he actually _ does. _

“How long have you been married, again?” Pierce asks like this is a conversation he and Steve have often, even though they’ve never once discussed Bucky. “I like to know about the spouses of my employees, you see,” Pierce continues, his hands folded neatly in his lap. “I care very much about all of you.”

“Eight years,” Steve say shortly. He breathes through the tightness in the middle of his sternum, turning the car almost blindly. He needs to snap the fuck out of it. He is on a _ job. _“That’s kind of you, sir.”

Pierce smiles like he agrees. “Well, he’s certainly attractive,” Pierce says, and Steve’s hands grip the steering wheel so tightly that the leather squeaks. “Very pretty, even with the arm. Is he good for you? Does he listen?”

“Mr. Pierce I think you’ll understand that I prefer not to talk about my husband this way,” Steve snaps, jerking the wheel as he changes lanes and not caring that the car behind him lets out a loud, rude beep. He isn’t really a terrible driver, he’d just been doing that to make Bucky laugh, lose some of his nerves, but god, the absolute rage he’s feeling right now is making him into one. “I don’t expect him to obey me and he doesn’t expect me to obey him, and we get along just fine.”

Pierce is quiet, and Steve doesn’t dare look over at him. Steve’s hands are shaking, and the breath in his chest feels like it’s made out of lava, something hot and molten that blocks up his chest. God, he hopes Bucky isn’t listening right now. 

He hopes Bucky never has to come near this scumbag again. 

“Forgive me, Captain Rogers,” Pierce says, and his voice is low and mellow and quiet, and still it sends a sick shiver down Steve’s spine. He doesn’t sound repentant at all. “I didn’t realize how much you respected him.”

Steve forces himself to glance at Pierce, forces his lips into a stiff, unyielding smile. He’s compromising the job, but he can’t really bring himself to care. 

“I respect him, and he respects me,” Steve says, and he realizes with some surprise that it’s true. He respects Bucky more than any other agent he’s worked with, he thinks—more than most people in general. “We’re a team.”

They finish the drive in silence.

***

Bucky has a standing invitation to join the knitting circle that Riley runs at his and Sam’s house—which, according to Sam, is more like a drink wine and bitch circle, but both sound fun, so Bucky heads over there late in the afternoon. 

He’s been thinking of knitting a sweater lately. He bought some nice blue yarn when he went to the store on Thursday, a sheep and alpaca wool blend, and he always carries around enough needle sizes to make pretty much anything. But a sweater seems nice. Especially since it’s getting cold. 

Sam and Riley liked the wine Bucky brought to dinner last week, so he brings another bottle with him, even though it’s two pm and the only thing he’s consumed today were the slightly-burned eggs he made him and Steve after they woke up. It’s fine, he thinks. He _ deserves _ this, he thinks. 

Sam opens the door. Bucky thrusts the bottle of wine at him. “Nice,” says Sam. 

Riley, Natasha, and Clint are all in the living room, glasses of wine in hand, knitting projects at the ready, and they wave genially at Bucky as he enters the room. It makes him smile a little, even though he has a policy of not smiling at people until he knows them so super well. It’s just that… these people seem to _ like _him. And that’s. Really nice. 

“Hey, Bucky,” Clint says, from where he is laying across Natasha’s lap, eating out of a bag of Cheetos. He is the only one—including Sam, who sits down in the armchair next to Riley, and Bucky, who sits on the couch near Clint’s feet—who isn’t knitting something. 

Natasha seems to catch Bucky’s look, because she smiles as she pats Clint on the head. “We wouldn’t let him have sharp things,” she explains fondly. 

Bucky laughs under his breath, accepting the glass of wine Riley passes him with a smile. He takes a sip, then sets it aside, getting out one of his skeins of yarn and his needle case. 

“Oooo, what’re you making with that?” Riley asks, looking with big eyes over at Bucky’s haul.

“Sweater,” says Bucky a touch smugly, finding the tail in the center of the skein and pulling a couple inches out. He begins to cast on, pattern forming in the back of his head as he goes. The blue yarn runs over his metal hand smoothly, and it’s years of practice that keep it from getting caught in the grooves. “For Steve,” says Bucky, and. Huh. He hadn’t realized that before he said it. “Matches his eyes.”

“Aw, man, what the fuck,” says Clint. “That’s so cute.”

Annoyed at himself, Bucky feels his cheeks start to heat with a blush, so he shakes his head until his hair falls down across his face and hunches his shoulders. They all laugh at him, loudly but not unkindly; it just makes him blush harder. 

“He’s an idiot,” Bucky mutters, “and doesn’t own any fucking sweaters.”

“I think that’s sweet, Bucky,” Natasha says. Bucky looks up at her, and she’s smiling her particular brand of smile, all sharp edges and a little bit of danger. 

“Yeah, you two are adorable,” Sam says. He’s fiddling with a tangle of bright red yarn, making what looks vaguely hat-shaped. Riley is watching him with a fond but exasperated tilt of his lips, so Bucky thinks it is probably _ not _ supposed to be a hat. “And also so hot together.”

There’s a chorus of agreement, unanimous around the room. Bucky can’t help but grin. They _ are _pretty hot. 

He is, however, grateful that their comms aren’t turned on. He doesn’t need Steve hearing all this. 

The afternoon wares on, and Bucky makes progress on his sweater, getting a good five inches around the bottom before the wine goes to his head and he starts dropping stitches. At one point he gets up to go to the bathroom, turning his earpiece on with fumbling fingers, and listens in to a bit of Pierce and Steve’s conversation. He can’t resist making a comment, just to piss Steve off; he’s absurdly sad when he remembers there are no cameras Bucky can look into where Steve is at, so Bucky can’t see the reaction flickering across Steve’s face. 

He prods at the comm in annoyance, poking at it until it hits the lowest channel that they never use because it’s just bad, the one where he can only hear Steve’s words, and none of Pierce’s. He can’t quite make out what Steve is saying all the time, but the low rumble of his voice in Bucky’s ear is soothing and—Bucky’s drunk enough to admit this—kind of hot. He leaves the bathroom smiling, and flops down onto the couch with the expression still smeared across his face. 

Natasha raises an eyebrow at him. She has been drinking straight vodka for the past three hours, and she doesn’t even seem tipsy. She is a goddess. 

“What’s with the giddy smile?” she asks him. 

Bucky takes a drink, trying to force his lips into a frown, but it just won’t work. “Steeeve,” he says, drawing the word out a little bit too long. He wonders why his stomach feels so fluttery. He wishes Steve were here. 

Natasha laughs. She’s careful not to move too much, because Clint is asleep on her lap, but she still laughs. Bucky doesn’t even care. It’s five fifteen, which means Steve is going to be home very very soon, so everything is… nice. 

“Oh yeah?” She says. She looks over at Sam and Riley, who are both comfortably tispy, but still sober enough to be laughing at Bucky, too. “He sending you dirty texts or something?”

Bucky wants to laugh it off, but instead he feels his face flame bright red, a hot, slow crawl of heat that matches the one brewing in his belly at that thought. He shifts on the couch. 

“Oh my _ god, _ ” Natasha says. “He _ is? _”

Bucky splutters for a good ten seconds before he manages to hiss “_ No _ , Steve is a _ gentleman. _”

“Even gentlemen can have fun, Barnes,” Riley pipes up, and Sam hoots loudly. Natasha looks at Bucky with both eyebrows raised.

“I hate you,” Bucky says, speaking as clearly as he can, which is. Well. Not very clearly. Oh god, he’s an idiot, he always gets stupid when he’s wine-drunk. His head is fuzzy. He wants to talk to Steve. 

He whips out his phone. 

“Back for more?” Natasha asks mildly, but Bucky ignores her. 

**Bucky: ** _ plz come homei am at sam and rileys house _

He doesn’t have to wait long for a response.

**Steve: ** _ Bucky? You ok? _

Bucky concentrates very hard as he types, his tongue between his teeth. 

**Bucky: ** _ i amdrun _

**Bucky: ** _ k _

**Bucky: ** _ so _

**Bucky: ** _ steve _

**Steve: ** _ Oh god. You idiot. On my way. Stay there, ok? _

Bucky smiles. Steve is so nice. Bucky can’t believe he ever hated him. It makes him want to cry, that he ever hated Steve. 

**Bucky: ** _ ok :) _

Steve knocks on the door in about ten minutes, and Sam gets up to let him in. Bucky hears them talking loudly in the hallway; hears Sam’s loud laugh, and Steve’s slightly softer chuckle, the sound of Steve’s voice so much closer than it’s been all day over the comms. Bucky shoves his knitting back into the bag and smiles to himself. 

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says as he comes into the room. He nods and smiles at everybody else when they greet him, but his eyes don’t leave Bucky, and Bucky almost shivers under the weight of his gaze. Steve’s eyes really are so very blue. 

“Stevie,” says Bucky, sitting up from where he’s slumped back against the cushions of the couch. He watches as a flush spreads over the tops of Steve’s cheeks, and covers his mouth with the palm of one hand when his smile gets too big. 

“I hate how cute they are,” Bucky hears Riley murmur, but he isn’t paying attention, because Steve is leaning down a little and slipping one of his big arms around Bucky’s waist, helping him up, and _ whoosh _, all the blood rushes out of Bucky’s head. 

“Omigod,” Bucky says in a jumble, and Steve laughs, and it vibrates between them, and _ wow. _Steve is warm. 

Bucky leans his head against Steve’s shoulder, eyes falling shut. 

He listens to Steve make their excuses, and lets Steve gently tug the bag of yarn and needles out of his grip. Steve has one hand holding gently to the soft curve of Bucky’s hip, and Bucky is clinging to the back of Steve’s jacket with a fist, and Bucky is suddenly so _ sleepy. _

“Wine makes me so tired,” he mutters as they make their slow way back across their lawn. It’s not even six o’clock, and he just wants Steve to pick him up and carry him the rest of the way home. Bucky would enjoy the hell out of that. 

Steve laughs quietly, less of a sound than a feeling. “Among other things,” he says. 

Bucky says something that sounds like “Mnnhmf.”

“Sure thing, Bucky,” Steve says in a mild tone, and he manhandles Bucky a little, propping him up against the wall as he unlocks the front door. Bucky watches his hands move, his eyelids heavy, and doesn’t bother to hide the fact that he’s staring. When Steve turns to him again, Bucky smiles sweetly. 

Steve blinks, eyes wide, like he’s stunned. Bucky understands, in some distant part of his mind that is too muffled to pay any attention to, that he is ruining his own carefully-cultivated image as a grumpy asshole who is not sweet ever and does not like Steve at all, but he cannot for the life of him bring himself to care. 

“Ok,” Steve says, under his breath but with conviction, like he’s trying to convince himself of something. He nods once, swallowing, and the slope of his eyebrows is gentle and arched upwards over the bridge of his nose as he slides a palm over Bucky’s hip and around to the small of his back, helping him inside. He kicks the door shut behind him with his heel. 

“I want tacos,” Bucky says musingly, head in the divot of Steve’s neck and shoulder. He’s very tired, but he’s also starving; right now, he can’t really remember why it’s not possible to eat and sleep at the same time. 

“Bucky what the _ hell _,” Steve says, but it isn’t like he’s angry or even particularly annoyed: instead, there’s a timbre to Steve’s voice that Bucky doesn’t recognize. It sounds almost… it sounds almost fond. 

It makes Bucky preen, even as Steve is lowering him down until he’s stretched lengthwise upon the sofa, pulling off Bucky’s sneakers and tucking a big, soft blanket over him. Steve tucks the edges in under Bucky’s thighs and waist and shoulders. 

Bucky stares up at Steve as he works, a tiny bit mesmerized by the golden flow of his eyelashes over his cheeks, by the way his hair is falling out of the slicked-back style he wears to work and wisping down over his forehead. Bucky doesn’t think he’d mind if Steve fake kissed him again. 

“You are,” Bucky says, but he stops himself before he can get the rest of the words out. He has no idea what he’s going to say, but he has a feeling it wouldn’t be good. He has a feeling it might upset Steve, and he doesn’t want to do that. Almost desperately, he doesn’t want to do that. “Strong,” he finishes lamely, because Steve is half-lifting Bucky up with two hands braced against his shoulder blades, wedging a pillow beneath his head. 

“Jesus,” Steve breathes out a thready chuckle, and one of his wide palms brushes Bucky’s metal shoulder gently, just over the place where all of the scarring is. It makes Bucky shiver—not with pain, but with the memory of it. “How much did you drink?” 

“Like,” says Bucky, and he can’t stop the slow, liquid spread of another embarrassing smile, not when Steve is looking at him like that. “Most of it.” 

Steve’s hand brushes Bucky’s shoulder again, and then it hovers there, and then, after half a second of hesitation, it _ lands _ there, pressed firmly yet gently through the layers of blanket and jacket and shirt. It’s shatteringly warm. Bucky can barely keep his eyes open, with how good it feels. 

“Get some sleep, Bucky,” Steve murmurs, and Bucky smiles even as his eyes close, because that’s the third time Steve has called him by name without anyone else around, and that feels special. 

“Tacos?” Bucky mutters hopefully. 

Steve laugh floats to him, distant yet warm. 

“When you wake up, Buck.” 

Bucky’s asleep before he can answer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what is??? a plot??!!?!!?!


	8. Chapter 8

On Tuesday, Steve sneezes seventeen times while he’s at work. When he gets home, he and Bucky eat dinner, and Steve sneezes an additional eight times before heading off to bed. Bucky just looks at him, distantly grumpy. 

***

On Wednesday, Steve can’t breathe out of his nose. He sneezes enough times that he stops counting. Bucky makes him tea when he gets home, which Steve refuses to drink on principle. Bucky rolls his eyes. 

***

On Thursday, Steve misses his alarm, and wakes up thirteen minutes before he needs to be out the door with Bucky standing over him like some kind of looming monster dressed in a fuzzy light pink sweater and joggers. Bucky’s hair is piled up on his head in some kind of bun, stands falling down alluringly all over the place, and the only reason Steve doesn’t scream and shove him off of the mattress is because Steve cannot breathe out of his nose and the pressure building behind his eyeballs prevents him from moving if he doesn’t want his head to explode. 

Steve is also freezing, shivering even under the thick duvet he pulled over himself in the night, and sweating enough the he doubts his body has any water left in it. And his throat feels like he swallowed nails. 

“Fuck,” Steve rasps. 

Bucky, still hovering over Steve, develops a little divot of concentration between his eyebrows as he peers down at Steve with his clear gray eyes. One of his hands braces against Steve’s chest as he leans forward and presses the back of the other to Steve’s forehead, probably checking for a fever. His eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. 

“Yep,” he says, sitting back on his haunches. Steve realizes that Bucky’s socked feet are on his bed. Steve feels so terrible that he doesn’t even care. “You’re not going to work today.”

Bucky’s hands feel cool and steady against Steve’s burning skin, somehow not too much even though Steve is physically shaking. Steve thinks he should protest this, but he can’t remember why. His brain is muzzy and distant, mixed up like the colors in a Pollock painting.

“Gotta,” says Steve, touching one finger to the base of Bucky’s flesh wrist, feeling the pound of his pulse that thrums under his paper-thin skin. 

Bucky is soft and smudged in the dove-gray light. He pulls both hands back into his lap, and Steve nestles further down into his blankets, bereft. 

“No,” says Bucky, and slips off of the bed, disappearing out of the room entirely. 

Steve drifts off, waiting for him to come back. When he opens his eyes again, it’s to Bucky’s hands encouraging him to sit up against his pillows, Bucky’s fingers pressing lightly to Steve’s jaw until he tips his head back, swallowing down the capful of cough syrup that has materialized from somewhere. 

Bucky’s face is close to Steve’s, and his touch is soft and soothing. Steve, eyes half-lidded, accepts the glass of water and the handful of pills Bucky hands him, and drinks half of it even though his throat burns and his hands shake. 

“There you go,” Bucky murmurs, taking the glass back when Steve stops to catch his breath. He sounds softer than he ever does, unusually fond, and Steve, feeling sick and short of breath and tired and sad because of all three of those things, wants to lean into him. He doesn’t. “Good job.”

“I’m just takin’ a drink, Bucky,” Steve mumbles, not bothering to mask the way his accent peeps out when he’s tired. Anyway, it’s fine in front of Bucky: the other night, when Steve had helped Bucky home, he’d been as Brooklyn as Steve had ever heard him. 

“Didn’t choke to death, did you?” Bucky counters, a smile trapped in one corner of his mouth. He brushes his fingertips over Steve’s sweaty temple, and gives Steve a few more sips of water before he sets the glass on Steve’s nightstand. 

Once more Steve drifts, with Bucky sitting there beside him. He doesn’t know what Bucky is doing—just watching Steve, maybe—but it’s ok. It’s good. Steve hates being sick, but he hates even more being alone while he is, and… and this is the first time since his mom died that he hasn’t had to take care of himself while he was ill. 

“Steve,” Bucky says quietly, and Steve must have said that last part aloud on accident: Bucky sounds small and sad, lonely in the same way Steve is lonely all the time. Steve, hiding behind the blackness of his shuttered eyelids, gropes blindly over the bedclothes until he finds Bucky’s hand. 

“Stay?” Steve says, opening his eyes a crack to find Bucky watching him avidly, his color high. “Just. Sorry.”

Bucky swipes a thumb over the ridge of Steve’s knuckles. “Hold on,” he says. 

He comes back into the room with his arms full of soft blue wool, a little metal case in one hand. He smiles when he meets Steve’s eyes, and Steve coughs loudly, his lungs spasming, as he tries to smile back. 

“Sweater,” says Bucky, in response to the question that must be in Steve’s eyes. He climbs up onto the bed—up onto Steve’s bed, making the mattress dip with his weight, yet somehow not jostling Steve at all—and props himself up against the headboard, letting the woven yarn swamp his lap. 

Steve, head pounding, turns his cheek into his pillow so he can watch the look of quiet devotion on Bucky’s face as he knits. Steve’s vision is swimming a little bit, even though he’s horizontal and still, and Bucky is blurred around the edges. 

Bucky’s eyes meet Steve’s. He touches Steve’s temple again, light, and Steve’s spine unfurls. 

“Sleep,” says Bucky. “You’ll feel better if you do.”

***

A few hours later, and Steve’s eyes are gummy and still illness-heavy, reluctant to peel open. The light coming in through the cracks around his curtain is burnished, splashing against Bucky’s pale skin. 

Steve watches him shamelessly. Bucky is still knitting, his hands moving with a swift surety that’s captivating, manipulating the needles and the yarn like a dance; his hair has fallen down a bit more, and it trails in gentle curls down the back of his heck. 

Steve is floating mid-air, and Bucky is lovely. 

He makes a noise, he thinks, some sort of indication that he’s awake, because Bucky looks over at him, his hands stilling and eventually falling to rest in the puddle of sweater across his thighs. 

“Hey,” Bucky says. He picks up the half-empty glass of water and Steve struggles to prop himself up on one arm as he takes a few sips, hating the way the movement rips at his throat, but relishing the way the dryness is dispelled. Steve settles back against his pillows, spent and feeling useless. 

“Thank you could eat?” Bucky asks him, hand pressing against the warmth radiating from his forehead, and Steve nods even though he’s not sure. 

But Bucky smiles at him. “Good,” he says, placing the sweater at the foot of the bed and getting out. He left a warm dip in the covers where he sat; Steve rolls towards it a little. “I’ll be back soon, Steve.”

Bucky keeps saying his name. He’s said it so many times in the last few days that Steve has lost count, and that’s honestly such a wonderful problem to have; he thrills slightly every time Bucky looks him in the eye and calls him by his first name. 

It’s pathetic. 

***

Bucky comes back holding a big mug that’s steaming slightly in one hand, and Steve’s iPad in the other. Steve sits up as Bucky comes closer, his joints feeling swollen and stiff, and ignores the dizzy sway of his vision as he settles back into the pillow behind him. 

“It’s from a can,” Bucky says, sounding apologetic. He comes to Steve’s side of the bed, tossing the iPad lightly over to the empty half and sitting half of his ass down on the edge of the mattress, facing Steve; his knee brushes Steve’s hip, their thighs running parallel to each other, and he balances the mug in his metal hand with a series of muffled clinking noises. 

Ninety percent of the soup Steve has consumed in his adult life has been from a can. 

“Thanks, Buck,” he says, his vowels fuzzy and consonants smudged. He takes the soup, holding it close to his chest to soak in the warmth before he tries to eat any of it, listening with distant pleasure to the soft sounds of concern Bucky is making as he checks Steve’s temperature again, pulls up Steve’s blankets, fluffs his pillows. 

After watching avidly as Steve eats a few bites—probably making sure he’s actually going to do it—Bucky nods to himself and gets up, coming around to the other side of Steve’s bed and climbing in. He unlocks Steve’s iPad. 

“You know my password?” Steve mumbles. 

“It’s stupid,” Bucky says, but he tips sideways ever-so-slightly, stopping just when his left shoulder comes up against Steve’s right. “Your password is the year you were born. That’s narcissistic.” 

Steve is too tired to do anything but hum a quiet acquiescence, watching as Bucky opens up his Netflix app and begins to scroll through his queue with one finger. Bucky flicks a glance up at Steve, a teasing grin waiting to break, and then he does a double take and looks again, this one holding longer as he watches Steve watch him. 

“You done?” Bucky asks him. 

Steve blinks at him, uncomprehending, before he realizes he’s just holding the half-empty mug of soup and staring at Bucky like an idiot. 

“Oh,” says Steve, looking back up in time to watch Bucky’s gaze soften. “Yeah.”

Bucky leans across Steve, plucking the mug from his hands and setting it on the nightstand as he does so, and he feels  _ so good _ draped across Steve like this, so warm and heavy and real, and Steve just wants to grab at him and press him close and never let him go. It makes Steve’s chest hurt, hurt like it always does when his piece of shit immune system decides to fail him again, but somehow worse. Worse, because it’s not the fluid in his weak lungs doing this, it’s the living presence of someone else that is. 

The thoughts fluttering through Steve’s brain are distressingly incoherent. The primary two are  _ Bucky  _ and  _ warm.  _

He moves back, Bucky does, but not very far because Steve’s palm is fitted in the curve of Bucky’s waist now, awkward in angle and inappropriate in grip. Bucky sort of melts down on top of Steve, his head in the scoop of Steve’s shoulder, his hand pressed into the hard lines of Steve’s stomach; Steve snatches his own hand back, suddenly, flamingly embarrassed at what he’s done, but Bucky just. Stays there. Doesn’t pull away. 

“Sorry.” Steve sounds quiet and even more mortified than he actually is, which just serves to make him feel worse. Bucky fits right there where he is so perfectly. “I’m sorry. I.”

Bucky wriggles a bit, getting comfortable, sinking down into Steve and making him feel protected and protective and anchored in. Steve’s arm is wrapped snugly around Bucky’s back, and his hand drifts up to Bucky’s hair of its own accord, fluttering down to the top of his head. Bucky’s hair is soft, like silk. 

“You’re really warm,” Bucky says, turning his face so briefly into the skin of Steve’s neck and breathing there. Steve wants to exist in those ten seconds indefinitely. Steve’s fever is almost certainly frying his brain. 

“I have a fever,” Steve gets out, his voice raspy and weak, and then Bucky laughs soundlessly against him, and something in the center of Steve’s chest drops solidly. He feels like he’s swinging on a pendulum, wild, sweeping arcs. 

Bucky presses so closely to Steve for a few more seconds that Steve would have to be completely stupid to doubt his intentions. Then Bucky lets up slightly, dragging his fingertips over Steve’s stomach in a tingling swipe. 

“You sure do, pal,” Bucky says. He touches Steve in the center of his chest, to the right of that place that shields the way his heart is taking laps around his ribcage, and smiles. “Lay down. I’ll be here.”

What can Steve do but obey? He nods dumbly, sleepy eyes locked with Bucky’s, and slides back down until he’s stretched out on his back, his cheek pressed to the warm firmness of Bucky’s thigh. Bucky scratches his fingertips through Steve’s hair, and Steve shivers. 

He falls asleep again, constellations behind his eyes, the click of Bucky’s knitting needles the soundtrack to his dreams. 

***

On Friday, Steve wakes up after the sun again. There’s less pressure pounding around in his skull, but there’s still some; he goes to clear his throat, and the movement hurts so bad that water springs to his eyes. 

Steve presses the back of his hand to his own forehead, like Bucky had done so many times yesterday, but all of his skin still feels tight and hot and he can’t tell if his body temperature is normal anymore. 

Ugh. Being sick is the  _ worst.  _

Taking a deep, fortifying breath, Steve heaves himself to his feet, and only feels like he’s going to pass out for about five seconds. Altogether not the worst record. He takes one wobbly step towards his door, then another, going slow until he’s out in the hallway— 

Where he is immediately intercepted by Bucky. 

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Bucky says, both hands coming up and landing somewhat awkwardly on Steve’s chest. He just leaves them there, squinting up at Steve through eyes that still look puffy with sleep, his scruffy jaw set mulishly. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Buck,” Steve says, and  _ fuck  _ his throat hurts, also great, he barely has any voice, fucking  _ fantastic.  _ “I smell so bad.”

Bucky makes a show of leaning in to smell him and then rolling his eyes back in his head like he’s dying, and it makes Steve want to hit him but also, like… hug him. For some reason. He shakes his head, mildly confused, and settles for glaring at Bucky instead. 

“You aren’t my mom,” Steve rumbles. He isn’t  _ trying _ to rumble, but mucus does menacing things to his voice box. 

“I cook for you, I call off work for you, I make sure you don’t die in your sleep—”

“ _ Bucky. _ ”

Bucky sighs. He takes his hands away from Steve’s chest, and it’s only now that Steve blushes, realizing just how close they’d been. He hopes the pinkness of his cheeks can be attributed to fever. 

“Fine,” Bucky says. “But I’m sitting outside the bathroom door in case you slip and fall and break your fucking neck.”

Steve, too tired to argue, just nods his head. He doesn’t miss the way Bucky’s lips want to twitch up into a smile. 

In the end, the shower maybe isn’t the most stellar idea Steve has ever had, because he gets so dizzy from the heat and the steam and the prolonged standing halfway through washing his hair that he has to sit down and finish right there in the middle of it all—but he also doesn’t slip and die, which he counts as a win. Bucky knocks on the door a few times, yelling in to check up on him, and Steve thumps on the wall in response since there’s no way he’s going to raise his shredded voice for this shit. 

He climbs out with limbs feeling shaky as a newborn foal’s, taking too long to dry off and throw a clean pair of pajamas on—evidently provided by Bucky, since Steve forgot to grab any before he got in the shower. By the time he walks out of the bathroom, he can barely keep himself from collapsing into Bucky’s waiting arms and sleeping for seventy years. 

Bucky didn’t lie. He really is sitting right outside the bathroom door, his legs crossed, his elbows on his knees, as he stares out into space. Steve laughs when he spots him, leaning into the doorway because he sort of feels like he’s going to fall over. Bucky looks up at him at the noise. 

“Oh good, you aren’t dead,” Bucky says, sounding bland enough that Steve isn’t sure if it’s even a joke or not until Bucky tips his head back against the wall and smiles at Steve with the edge of his lips. 

Steve doesn’t say anything. He rests his temple against the cool wood doorframe, and doesn’t make himself look away. He yawns expansively. 

“Alright, big guy,” Bucky says with a sound that is endearingly like a giggle. Steve saves that information away for blackmailing purposes later. Bucky stands, legs unfolding like origami, and tugs down the bottom of his too-big sweatshirt and he crosses over to Steve and takes Steve’s arm in both of his hands. “Back to bed with you.”

“‘M sick of sleeping,” Steve mumbles, even as he stumbles along behind Bucky, letting himself get pulled along in whatever direction Bucky decides to take him. That direction ends up being back to Steve’s room, where it looks like Bucky has changed Steve’s bed sheets into something fresher. 

“Don’t hafta sleep, Steve,” Bucky says. He pokes Steve in the small of his back until Steve flops down onto the waiting mattress, situating himself so that he is propped against the headboard, and then pulls the blankets up to Steve’s waist. He grins at Steve, even teeth flashing in the morning light, as he pats Steve’s blanket-clad thigh. “Let’s watch High School Musical.”

Steve can’t really find it within himself to complain. Not when Bucky queues up all three movies in that franchise, not when he makes Steve eat some toast and fruit and drink a gallon of cough syrup and swallow, like, a whole bottle of pills, especially not when Bucky curls up beside Steve, iPad propped on his steepled knees, and rests his head on Steve’s shoulder while he knits and watches and sings.

“You know,” Steve muses, after lunch where he’d eaten almost his usual amount of food without wanting to die, “I really hope you don’t get sick after this.”

Bucky, mouth full of popcorn—because he eats popcorn in bed like a  _ demon _ —shrugs against Steve, and the movement feels like he’s nuzzling his face into Steve’s shoulder, and Steve’s body has several things to yell to him about that. Namely,  _ wow nice.  _ “Yeah well if I do, you just gotta wait hand and foot on me like I’m doing with you,” Bucky says reasonably. 

On screen, Sharpay does something fabulous and bitchy. “You aren’t waiting hand and foot on me,” Steve insists obstinately, even though it’s frankly not true. He doesn’t bother to protest the fact that he’d wait on Bucky in return, though; at this point, after all of this, he knows he would. It’s such a far cry from how he felt about Bucky Barnes two and a half weeks ago that he almost gets whiplash from it. 

“Only ‘cause I only have one real hand,” Bucky says distractedly, which a) doesn’t make sense and b) isn’t that funny. Steve laughs anyway. 

He wonders if he and Bucky are at the point where he can ask Bucky what happened to his arm, and then immediately chastises himself for even wondering. That is absolutely none of his business. They are absolutely not at that point. 

Steve hopes it wasn’t something awful, though. Bucky doesn't deserve something awful to have happened to him. Now, or ever. 

They finish all three films, tucked up against each other like they’re actually friends, backed by Bucky’s enthusiastic-yet-bitchy commentary (“Chad and Ryan are gay for each other, you know” “Ok Zefron is hot, I’m not ashamed” “Be honest, do you think that I would be best friends with those kids, because I do”) and Steve can’t remember the last time he laughed this hard during a movie, sick or not. 

Bucky sits up at one point, mostly-done sweater falling to his lap, and gesticulates wildly to articulate some point that Steve honestly can’t even remember now. Bucky’s cheeks are a little pink, flushed from the warmth their bodies generate, and his hair is messy, and his eyes are bright and round; the sweatshirt he’s wearing is big at the collar, and Steve can’t stop staring at the soft flesh that pillows the curve of his neck, the gentle rise of his clavicle. 

And Steve is out of it still—he must be—because he opens his mouth and blurts out what he’s thinking, no hesitation at all. 

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” 

Bucky pauses in what he’s saying, eyes fixed upon Steve’s. His mouth melts into a smile. 

“Yeah, Stevie,” he says gently. “We’re friends.”

Steve has to look away. 

***

On Saturday, Bucky wakes up smiling. 

He isn’t sure why, as he lays there stretching in the sun that comes through his parted curtains, until the smell of cinnamon hits him and he realizes that must be what woke him up. 

His eyes drift open. His room is bright. He slept later than he wanted to.

He pulls a blanket around his shoulders and pads downstairs, looking for Steve. 

In the kitchen, Steve hums softly to himself as he flips a few slices of French toast in the skillet, his voice sounding scratchy and slightly off-key, but amusing in its enthusiasm. Bucky is pretty sure he’s humming  _ We’re All In This Together.  _ It’s… satisfying. 

Steve is still a little pale, still a little bit less vibrant than he usually is, but he’s steady on his feet, and that fevered sheen is gone from his eyes, that fevered flush is gone from his cheeks. His beard needs a trim. 

Bucky walks into the kitchen, sitting on his stool at the counter and resting his chin in his hand as he watches Steve finish up. He knows Steve knows he’s here: they can’t turn their training off even if they tried, and it’s just unskilled not to know when someone walks into a room behind you, but Bucky appreciates the way Steve doesn’t let it bother him. He waits until he wants to acknowledge Bucky, waits until the moment feels right, and when their eyes meet, Bucky smiles. 

God, he’s been smiling so much lately. It’s embarrassing. 

“Morning, Buck,” Steve says, voice still deep and scratchy with sickness. Bucky’s toes curl in his fuzzy socks. 

Steve slides a plate of toast across the counter toward Bucky, and turns to grab the syrup out of the cabinet above the microwave. His soft blue henley rides up a little bit as he reaches, and Bucky sees the soft pale skin lining the small of his back before he turns around again, seemingly unending between the hem of his shirt and the waist of his joggers. 

“Morning,” Bucky says, pouring syrup over his toast as Steve sits down across from him. He takes a bite, humming in happy surprise; it isn’t half-bad. “You can cook like three things really well.”

Steve grins at him, playful, a funny, sweet look on such a big man. He points his fork at Bucky. “Yes,” he says. 

Bucky laughs, tugging the folds of his blanket-cape closer. The coffee machine beeps loudly, and Steve’s slides off of his stool before Bucky can move, pouring them both a cup before coming back to the counter and sitting down again. 

Sunlight streams in through the window above the sink, and Steve’s hair turns into gold. 

They eat in the quiet, trading looks as their fingers brush over sugar and cream and syrup, smiling over the chipped edges of coffee cups. Bucky keeps thinking of a metaphor for all of this, but he can’t put it into words. 

“You feeling better?” Bucky asks after a few heartbeats worth of moments has passed, chin in his hands as he watches Steve finish. 

“Yeah.” Steve smiles at Bucky with his mouth full. Messy dickhead. Bucky fake-scowls at him. “Thanks to you.”

Bucky hates the way he gets fizzy and warm when Steve says something praising like that. It’s—it’s—ugh. He squirms in his chair, trying not to look into the full beam of Steve’s sunshine-smile. 

“Yeah, well, good,” he says gruffly, clearing his throat and blushing when Steve laughs at him. He takes a good, long sip of his coffee. “You seemed pretty miserable.”

Steve shrugs, the movement of his broad shoulders like liquid under his shirt. Bucky’s eyes don’t know where to land. “Being sick is never fun.” He drags the side of his fork through the syrup collected at the side of his plate, hesitating like there’s something he wants to say, so Bucky lets him think. “I, uh. I have a shit immune system. Always have, ever since I was a kid. I get sick a lot, and I’m used to taking care of myself, but it was nice to not have to. So, really. Thanks.”

Bucky can feel his eyebrows rise as he looks at Steve, trying to reconcile this towering vitamin-advertisement of a man with someone who ever has any flaws with their body. It’s difficult, even though he’s just spent the last four days watching him breathe with his mouth open and sleep. 

“You’re welcome,” Bucky says slowly. He feels like he should say more, but he doesn’t know what it would be; communicating has never been his strong suit, and even less so when it comes to Steve Rogers. He just settles for smiling at Steve, and then hustling to change the subject. “So Riley told me there’s a farmers market here on Saturday mornings. Feeling up to that today?”

“Yeah,” Steve says with more excitement than Bucky had expected. “I think I could stand to walk around in the sun for a couple of hours.”

They begin cleaning up, Bucky rinsing the dishes and loading the dishwasher, Steve putting the food away. Bucky glances out the window, glad to see that there aren’t any clouds in the sky. There’s only about a week of October left, and the weather is already getting nippy, but the sun should combat most of it.

All the same, Bucky resolves to make sure Steve dresses warmly. Good thing Bucky knows where he can get a sweater. 

***

“Here,” Bucky grunts, and tosses the balled up sweater he’s just finished knitting in Steve’s face. He waited until Steve cleared the last of the steps, which is good, because Steve stumbles into the handrail with a little, muffled ‘oof.’

Bucky watches as Steve holds the sweater up by the shoulders, weirdly nervous. It’s stupidly important to him that Steve doesn’t laugh. 

“You made this?” Steve asks him finally, looking up at Bucky with some emotion playing about the corners of his eyes that Bucky can’t name. It makes Bucky want to sink into the floor, or into Steve. 

“You don’t own any sweaters because you’re stupid,” Bucky mumbles turning away before he can do something ill-advised like beam, grabbing Steve’s leather jacket off of the hall tree and sliding it on. It’s too big, and soft, and warm. Bucky loves it instantly. “So wear it.”

Steve isn’t saying anything, and Bucky is too much of a goddamn coward to turn around. He opens the front door, feeling for his wallet in the pocket of his jeans, when he feels Steve’s hand rest on his elbow. 

“Bucky,” Steve says, and Bucky throws a look at him over his shoulder, and oh: he’s smiling. “You gotta wait for me to put it on.”

Steve pulls it on over his t-shirt, and his hair is messy when his head pops through. “Right,” Bucky says, sounding a bit faint. Steve is taking his hand, and Bucky is letting him. “Ok.”

Steve looks… wonderful. Bucky was right. The blue yarn really  _ does _ bring out his eyes. 

***

The farmers market is in what serves as a mall parking lot on every other day of the week except, apparently, Saturdays. It’s not too far from Bucky and Steve’s house—maybe five minutes—but Bucky, who had hopped into the driver’s seat before Steve could, spends that same amount of time just hunting for a parking spot. 

“This is the place to be, isn’t it,” Steve observes as Bucky finally parallel parks a few streets over from the market. 

“Well what else are you gonna do on a Saturday morning,” Bucky says as he climbs out of the car, slamming the door and pocketing the keys. 

Steve grins at him over the hood. “Sleep, according to you on literally every other day we’ve been here.”

“Alright, funny guy,” Bucky says. He steps up onto the sidewalk and takes Steve’s hand in his, and Steve tips his head down to laugh. “You’ve been sleeping for a solid two days.”

Steve squeezes his hand as they head up the sidewalk, the multi-colored tents and stalls of the market coming into view. “Yesterday I partook in quality entertainment,” he corrects Bucky. Steve tends to lead Bucky around when they walk holding hands; Bucky doesn’t really mind. Steve’s hand is broad and firm in his, and Steve himself is a comforting presence in general. It’s nice to sit back and let Steve make the simple decision of which direction their next steps will head in. 

Bucky tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. He’s wearing it loose today, down around his shoulders, and the breeze that whips at them is making a mess of things. “That you did,” he says. 

As they begin to weave through the stands, the breeze also carries over the scents of autumn, and Bucky breathes in as deep as his lungs will go: cider and cinnamon and the damp, earthy smell of fallen leaves, all mixed together in a tantalizing blend. Someone is making kettle corn a few rows over, and a stall to his very right is selling homemade beeswax products, and that rich scent permeates the air around them. 

They wander. It’s nice to have no particular agenda, no pressing event in mind; today, as they dip in and out of stands, buying small things that strike their fancy and sampling homemade things from local farmers and artisans, it’s easy for Bucky to forget that this isn’t something they do every Saturday. It’s easy for him to forget that none of this is real. 

Steve tugs Bucky over to a table at the end of a row, covered by a red-and-white striped tent and appearing bright in this corner of the market. It’s fairly small, and not that crowded; behind the table sits a girl, probably in her early twenties, who perks up with a smile when she spots Steve and Bucky. 

Surprisingly, Steve—definitely the best in social situations of the two of them—doesn’t seem to notice her, so Bucky gives an awkward smile on his behalf. Instead, Steve is staring down at the rows of framed paintings that she’s selling, transfixed. 

Puzzled, Bucky looks more closely, wondering what has Steve so enthralled. They paintings are good, he can see that; the use of color is striking yet balanced, and each subject is rendered with a careful hand that shows true skill. 

“Did you make these?” Bucky asks the girl, when it appears that Steve is just going to stand there and stare with that little furrow in his brow. 

She smiles. “I did.”

Steve looks up, then. “They’re wonderful,” he says, and Bucky can tell he means it. It makes Bucky smile. “Is watercolor your preferred medium?”

And they’re off. Steve and the girl descend into a conversation about canvases and brushes and paints and “subject” and “palette” and Bucky is… Bucky is… 

Oh, hell. He’s fucking charmed, is what he is. 

Steve is so earnestly engaged in what he’s saying, the hand that isn’t holding tight to Bucky gesturing broadly as he really sinks into the topic. He’s smiling, that smile that Bucky has only seen a few times so far, the one that shows that he’s truly content to be exactly where he is doing what he’s doing, and Bucky stops listening to what they’re saying as he turns and stares at Steve. 

It hits Bucky, just as he and the girl are finishing their conversation, Steve purchasing a little square painting of a sunset over a set of mountains: Bucky wants to kiss him. 

It must show in his face. Steve turns to face him, still beaming, bags hanging from the crook of his elbow, and when he meets Bucky’s eyes he stops moving and they watch each other, still, quiet. 

Bucky wants to kiss him. 

“I didn’t know you liked art so much,” Bucky says. His voice is thin, there’s too much breath in it; it’s ok to want to kiss him, isn’t it? It’s natural, right? He’s beautiful, and they get along, and they’re living this lie, so it only makes sense. It doesn’t mean anything. 

“Oh,” Steve says. His smile turns a bit self-deprecating, and that doesn’t make sense. “Yeah. I. I always thought I’d be an artist, when I was a kid. Wanted to go to art school.” He shrugs, and he isn’t looking away from Bucky, and they’re pressed close in this crowded aisle, and it would be the work of seconds for Bucky to simply lean forward and— 

“You draw a lot,” Bucky says, understanding dawning. He’d never really paid attention to how many times Steve would sit there and sketch, but now that he thinks about it, it was a frequent occurrence. “I never realized. I’m… sorry that didn’t work out for you.”

“That’s alright,” Steve says softly, hand curled like clinging ivy around Bucky’s wrist and palm and fingers. He is standing close, close enough that their voices don’t have to raise in volume. “I know you don’t always get what you want.”

Bucky wants to kiss him. 

“I guess not,” Bucky says quietly. He looks at Steve for a moment more before he turns again, Steve close to his side, and they head back home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my life is WACK at the moment, so my comment-responding powers are and will continue to be dulled for about two more weeks. so sorry! I'll continue to post twice a week, but it might take me a while to get back to all of you. just know that you're comments make these crazy days SO MUCH BETTER for me<3


	9. Chapter 9

_ “Rogers I swear to god,”  _ Bucky hisses through Steve’s earpiece, his voice tense with apprehension.  _ “If you fucking get caught— _ ”

“I  _ won’t, _ ” Steve hisses back, fingers flying over Pierce’s keyboard as he downloads files onto the thumb drive plugged into the computer. It’s just past midnight and he’s in Pierce’s office, working as fast as he can in the pitch dark. 

He disabled the cameras before he went in—at Bucky’s nagging insistence—so Pierce won’t know he’s down here unless he wakes up in the middle of the night and sees that the cameras aren’t working and decides to find out why. As Bucky has told Steve. Repeatedly. 

“ _ This is a bad idea,”  _ Bucky says, and Steve ignores him as he pulls up file after file, not bothering to check the contents. He’ll just send it all over to SHIELD when he gets home. Better to have a ton of information that is halfway useful than no information at all. 

“I don’t have a choice, Buck,” Steve murmurs. The screen of Pierce’s computer freezes for half a second, and Steve’s heart freezes in his chest—but then it flickers back into motion, and he breathes again. 

He opens another file, pulling it deep out of the recesses of Pierce’s hard drive, and his eyes catch on a sentence that flies by:  _ eliminating crime by targeted extermination of—  _

It makes Steve’s body erupt into tense shivers, just like Pierce’s words at that plant had done. There’s a certain maniacal quality to Pierce that doesn’t sit well with Steve, a radicalism to his beliefs that seems dangerous. It scares him. 

“ _ That’s a really stupid thing to say, Steve—”  _ Bucky breaks off abruptly and Steve immediately sits up straight, fingers pressing to his ear as he strains to hear any sound. 

“Bucky? Are you alright—”

“ _ He’s coming Steve, you have to get out of there right now,”  _ Bucky hisses, and he’s whispering even though he isn’t in the room, voice shaking so hard that it cracks in the middle. 

Steve doesn’t waste any time. He grabs the thumb drive out of the computer and makes sure the screen goes black before diving under Pierce’s desk, pressing his enormous body into as small a shape as he can make it, curled in the place where the chair would normally be nestled. His teeth are clenched so tightly that he’s afraid they’ll shatter. He doesn’t breathe. 

The door swings open with a sickly squeak of hinges, devastatingly loud in the small space. Steve’s heart is pounding an outrageous rhythm, echoing so in his ears that he can barely hear the rasp of Pierce’s feet over his carpeted office floor. 

He can see Pierce’s shoes under the bottom edge of the desk, light from the hallway reflecting off of the shiny leather. He comes in a few feet and then stops, still. He’s wearing pajama bottoms. 

He takes one more step forward. 

Steve reaches for his gun. 

Pierce turns around. Pierce leaves. 

Steve waits a full minute before moving, not caring that his muscles have started to cramp from being stuck in this tiny space for so long, ignoring the sweat that beads along his temples and under his arms. He feels sick, dizzy with the fading adrenaline rush. 

He just wants to go home, he realizes. It used to be that something like that would have exhilarated him, would have made him love his job even more; now, he’s just spent and weary and wishing he was retired. 

“ _ He’s back in his room, _ ” Bucky whispers, and Steve’s eyes fall closed at the familiar sound of Bucky’s voice in his ear, even if it’s badly shaken, reedy with passing fear. “ _ Get out, Steve,”  _ Bucky says, ragged and tired, and Steve doesn’t need to be told twice. 

“Don’t wait up,” he murmurs as he crawls on his hands and knees out from his hiding place, unfurling to stand and feeling his back and shoulders twinge. He puts the thumb drive in his inside pocket, zipping the pocket closed to keep it safe. 

Bucky doesn’t answer. Steve can hear him breathing, fast and sharp, matching Steve pant for pant even though he wasn’t even present, and Steve wants to ask him suddenly why he’s in this business, if he clearly hates it so much. It isn’t a judgemental question: Steve truly wants to know. He thinks Bucky, of all people, deserves to be doing something he loves. 

“ _ Hurry, _ ” Bucky says finally. Just one word—hurry. It shouldn’t make Steve’s heart leap in his chest like it does, but he can chalk that up to the excitement of the night. 

“Yeah,” Steve breathes, stepping into the elevator and letting himself lean back against one of the glass-paneled walls, hand pressed to the center of his chest. “Ok, Buck. I will.”

***

When he gets back, Bucky is sitting on their couch, a blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders, and glaring so darkly that a Steve less experienced with Bucky would interpret the expression as anger. Now he knows it’s just sheer concern. 

“I’m fine,” Steve says, even though he knows the concern is probably less about him and more about the fact that Steve almost just gave away their whole mission. “He didn’t see me, the cameras were off. I’m fine.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything. He stands, and the blanket falls away from his shoulders, and Steve is reminded of another night what feels like so long ago: a night where they’d been in this room, and Steve had said something so stupid and mean that he’d thought Bucky would never speak to him again. 

Bucky is up, walking, and Steve’s heart constricts irrationally because he can’t go back to a time where Bucky hates him, he just can’t. He reaches out as Bucky comes closer, his fingers slipping around Bucky’s wrist, holding him before he can leave; Bucky’s eyes widen, his lashes fluttering, and there’s a moment of stillness between both of them. 

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, not really thinking before he speaks, just needing to get the words out there before things are ruined. “I didn’t— _ oof.” _

Bucky walks straight into him, metal arm going around Steve’s waist like a vice, his face pressed into Steve’s chest. 

Still he’s silent. Steve’s own words drop off and his eyes drop shut and he holds Bucky back, lacing their hands together, curling his other palm around the base of Bucky’s skull. They breathe quietly together, and Steve fancies he can feel the leap of Bucky’s pulse in the places where they touch, the thrum of his heartbeat under his skin. 

Bucky has the TV on mute, and it throws colorful flashes up against the blackness of Steve’s eyelids. 

After a few quiet minutes, Bucky slips away, his arms going about himself as he looks up at Steve. The deep, gray pools of his eyes make Steve’s mouth go dry. Steve wants to—to say something, to do something— 

Bucky turns and leaves the room, and Steve’s heart swings like a pendulum in his chest. 

***

Natasha is in her front yard when Bucky and Steve get home from dinner one night, standing with her arms crossed as she looks up at her house. She turns as they pull into their driveway, meeting Bucky’s eyes through the windshield, and begins to walk over to them as Steve puts the car in park. 

“Oh boy,” Bucky says, but it’s half-hearted; he likes Natasha, despite her propensity towards probing questions. 

Steve grins at him as he gets out of the car. 

“Hello, boys,” says Natasha, striding up their driveway towards them. She’s got on a huge t-shirt and paint-stained sweatpants, her red hair tied up out of her face, and she somehow manages to make the whole outfit look glamorous. 

“Hey, Nat,” Steve says. He tucks the car keys into his jeans pocket with a jangle, and Bucky tugs the folds of Steve’s jacket closer to himself a little guiltily. He’s basically stolen this article of clothing from Steve, and now Steve is forced to use subpar pockets. Ah, well. “How’re you doing?”

Nat stops directly in front of them, crossing her arms. “Honestly, I’ve been better.”

Bucky and Steve blink at her, a little taken aback. “Oh no,” Steve says faintly. 

“Now I hate to do this,” Natasha says with a smile that really doesn’t look like she hates to do this, and dread begins to build in Bucky’s gut. “But Clint and I are having our house remodeled, as you know, and they’re getting ready to work on our bedroom tomorrow.” She stops, letting that sink in. Bucky sort of wants to throw up. “Is there any chance you two have a spare bedroom, up there in that house of yours? Just for a week or so?” 

And what can they say? Certainly not  _ no.  _

Resolutely avoiding Steve’s gaze, Bucky clears his throat and nods, hoping he doesn’t look as terrified as he feels. “Uh, yeah, Natasha, I’m sure that’d be fine,” he says. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Steve looking at him, and it makes Bucky feel hot and uncomfortable. “Right, Steve?”

Steve takes a moment too long to answer. Natasha looks horribly amused. “Yeah, yeah, come on over whenever,” Steve croaks. 

“Thank you so much,” Natasha says, giving each of them a quick kiss on the cheek. She darts back over to her house, fingers fluttering a wave, and Steve and Bucky are left staring dumbly after her. 

“Fuck—” Bucky begins, but Steve grabs his hand and hauls him towards the house. 

“Not here,” Steve murmurs, eyes fixed straight ahead. The tops of his ears are pink. Fuck fuck fuck. 

As soon as the door shuts behind them, Bucky rounds on Steve, one hand slapping himself on the forehead. “I panicked,” Bucky groans, hoping the dimness of the room hides how embarrassed he is. “Shit, Steve, I’m sorry.”

“It’s, it’s fine,” Steve stutters. He sits down heavily on the bottom step leading up stairs, tugging at the collar of his shirt as he stares fixedly at a spot above Bucky’s head, and _ fuck.  _ “It’s fine, we just, obviously one of us needs to… to move into the other’s room.” 

It’s gonna have to be Steve. Bucky has way too much stuff. He’ll break that news as gently as possible. 

***

Bucky descends upon Steve as he’s leaving the next morning, leaning up against the door with his arms crossed.

“It’s gonna have to be you,” he says. 

Steve sighs. He’s wearing the thick black tac gear that Pierce requires his security staff to wear. It’s too thick to wear a jacket over, so he fishes the keys out of his pocket, shoving them into the pockets of his black pants. “I know, Buck,” he says, sounding heavy with resignation, and Bucky wonders if it’s the prospect of moving all his shit or the prospect of the two of them being so close for a whole week that’s rankling him. 

Bucky gives him what he hopes is a sympathetic look, curling his palms into fists at his sides to hide how sweaty they are. “Want me to do it while you’re gone?”

Steve slides a broad palm over his face, expression wry through the cracks between his fingers. “Would you mind?” 

“Nah,” says Bucky, stepping away from the door. Steve has like six articles of clothing and a few sketch pads. It’s not like this’ll be a hardship. 

“Thanks,” Steve says with a grateful look. He makes Bucky’s heart thump. “See you tonight.”

Steve opens the door, and Bucky is in full view of the rest of the street, so he steps forward and brushes his lips against the top of Steve’s cheek. Just in case anybody is watching, he tells himself. Just in case. Steve steadies himself with a hand at Bucky’s waist, and Bucky soaks in that brief flash of warmth from his skin like sunshine. 

“See you,” Bucky says, stepping back into the house, eyes full of the quiet smile Steve had worn. 

It takes him just over an hour to move Steve’s stuff into his room, and then make Steve’s bedroom look like a place that’s reserved for guests instead of a lived-in place. He changes the sheets—second time he’s done that, he thinks with amusement—and fluffs the pillows, makes sure the wardrobe is empty and the IKEA-bought art is hanging straight on the walls. And then he carries Steve’s things into his own room, folding their clothes in together, slotting Steve’s books into the empty places on Bucky’s bookshelf. He changes the sheets in here, too. 

When he’s done, he sits in the middle of the mattress, legs crossed. 

This is happening. They’re gonna do this. 

It’s a good thing the bed is big, he thinks, sprawling back against the ample pillows and staring up at the cream-colored ceiling. At least he can sleep on one edge and Steve can sleep on the other and they won’t be paranoid of… of touching in the night or something. Not that Bucky would mind. 

That’s the problem, isn’t it? Bucky really wouldn’t mind. Really really. At  _ all.  _

“ _ Fuck,” _ he says out loud, with feeling. Then he climbs off of the bed, switches his earpiece on, and starts planning dinner. 

***

Steve gets home first, which is good. He comes into the kitchen where Bucky is busy cooking—chicken and rice and steamed veggies, easy and hearty and definitely tasty—giving Bucky a wan smile over the counter as he opens the fridge and pours himself a glass of water. 

“Hey,” Bucky says, eyeing the chicken where it’s cooling on the stovetop. He starts to serve two plates worth of food, figuring that if Natasha and Clint show up while they’re eating, they can just get it themselves. “You doing alright?”

Steve has the top of his tac gear unzipped and hanging loosely down to his waist, black undershirt exposed. He wipes a few drops of water away from his pink lips, scratching at his beard once before letting his hand fall, and Bucky swallows back a little noise of appreciation. God, the man is hot. 

“Nervous,” says Steve, laughing once. Dry, like he doesn’t mean it. “That’s usually your job, isn’t it?”

“I like calling it caution,” says Bucky. He hands Steve a plate, and then walks over to the other side of the kitchen. They’ll eat at the table for once, just in case Nat and Clint do bust in. It feels more normal. 

Steve joins him, sliding a chair out and sinking down into it without comment. He tucks into his dinner, making a low noise as the flavors hit his tongue. “Holy shit, Buck,” he says, and Bucky smothers down a smug little smile. 

“In another lifetime I’m a chef,” Bucky says plainly, taking his own much smaller bite. Steve was right: it’s delicious. 

Steve’s legs move beneath the table, and his feet come to rest against Bucky’s, hard boots against fuzzy socks. Bucky doesn’t know if it’s deliberate or not, although when Steve tangles their ankles together, he begins to suspect that it is. Holy shit. 

“In another lifetime I’m your number one fan,” Steve declares, giving Bucky a winning smile. 

Bucky smirks at him. “You’re my number one in every lifetime, pal.”

He means it as a joke, a passing comment; he does  _ not _ mean to make Steve’s frequent blush to flare up like that, to make Steve’s deep blue eyes linger on him for a long while. He swallows, his throat thick with something, and Steve says “Maybe so.”

Bucky nudges Steve’s ankle with his toes, and Steve smiles down at his chicken and traps Bucky’s foot between his calves. 

Oh. Ok.  _ Alrighty _ then. 

***

Nat and Clint arrive a couple of hours later. Clint has two duffel bags slung over his shoulders and Nat is holding a plastic tub full of toiletries, and they both give Steve and Bucky grateful hugs as they crowd inside. 

“Dude I did not mean for this to be the first time we ever came over,” Clint says to Bucky as Steve is leading them all upstairs. 

Bucky shrugs ag him, making sure to smile so Clint can tell there’s no harm done. “We’ll get to know each other better this way,” Bucky reasons. 

Clint’s eyes go wide. “Shit, man,” he says, and nods a few times until Bucky, laughing, ushers him after Natasha into their room. 

“Hope it’s ok,” Steve says, hovering nervously by the doorway. Bucky barely resists the urge to flick him in the ear. Why is he, the intrepid one, the stupidly brave one, suddenly showing nerves? Where’s that iron resolve that Bucky saw not so long ago when he nearly got caught infiltrating Pierce’s office in the dead of night?

“It’s perfect,” Natasha says, smiling with just her eyes as she watches Clint starfish himself out across the enormous bed. “Really, thank you.”

“No problem.”

They say goodnight then, although Bucky can barely pay attention throughout the conversation. He’s entirely too wrapped up in the prospect of what comes next: him and Steve, crawling into bed together, sleeping next to each other, having to appear even more in love for the next seven days than they have on this whole mission. 

Bucky thinks of the way Steve’s hands feel on him, of Steve’s warmth; he thinks of Steve’s gentle, comforting presence, and the little lines that appear in the corners of his eyes when he smiles. 

Ok so. It might be possible that Bucky sort of has a crush on his fake husband. 

Fucking fuckballs. 

Steve’s hands are on him now, as broad and as strong as Bucky remembered them; he’s leading Bucky out of Clint and Natasha’s room and into their own bedroom, silent, and Bucky is stumbling along, because of course he is. Because Bucky’s an  _ idiot _ who just realized that he would much rather kiss his arch-enemy than punch him. Bucky is in  _ distress.  _

When the bedroom door shuts behind them, Steve lets go, and Bucky tries not to be disappointed. 

Quietly, they get ready for bed. Bucky’s skin flashes hot whenever he catches Steve’s eyes, and he feels jittery, from his chest all the way down to his fingertips. They change into pajamas with their backs turned to each other, and Bucky can hear every whisper of clothing against Steve’s skin as he disrobes, amplified in Bucky’s eardrums like he’s tuned to Steve’s noises only, volume at full blast. He turns around, catching Steve pulling a t-shirt on over his head, and his eyes get caught on the thick muscles of his stomach, the gentle angle of his hip bones. 

Steve looks at him. His eyes glow electric blue in the half-light. “Right or left side?” he asks. 

“Left,” Bucky rasps, throat dry, and Steve nods. 

They get in. The bed springs complain loudly. Bucky’s barely breathing. 

Steve flicks the lamp off, plunging them into darkness. 

Flat on his back, Bucky closes his eyes tightly, listening in to the soft rushing sounds of Steve’s hair on his pillowcase as he lowers himself down, the crinkle of the covers as they both pull them up to their chins. He waits, counting heartbeats, until those noises settle, and then he exists in the silence. 

“G’night, Bucky,” Steve murmurs after a moment, his voice low and round. 

Bucky wonders how many inches are between them. Not many. Not at all. 

“Goodnight.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well there's no going back NOW

Steve wakes up to someone whimpering. 

For half a second, he’s back in Afghanistan, stuck in a ditch with three dying men, the sound of bombs detonating all around them. He sits bolt upright, a cry strung up behind his lips, eyes opening wide—

He’s in his house. He’s in Bucky’s bedroom, Bucky’s bed. 

Bucky.

He’s utterly still beside Steve—unnaturally so. His eyes are squeezed tightly shut, a wrinkle between his eyebrows, his perfect round mouth open in a harsh pant; the only movement coming from him is the sharp, jagged rise and fall of his chest, and the white-knuckled clench of his fists in the sheets. 

He’s crying. 

“Bucky,” Steve says on a breath, fumbling with hands that aren’t steady as he props himself up over the other man. He wants to reach out and touch Bucky, but he knows from experience that he shouldn’t do that during a nightmare. Sleep is a violent land for people like them. “Bucky,” he says, raising his voice, hoping desperately that that breaks through whatever dream Bucky’s caught in the thrall of. “Wake up, Buck, you’re ok. Come on, Bucky. It’s just a dream.”

Bucky wails once, the sound breaking off into a stuttered sob as his eyes fly open and he sits straight up like Steve had, his right hand clawing at the place where his metal arm and the flesh of his shoulder meet. 

“Bucky,” Steve says, voice ragged. “Bucky. You’re alright, I promise. I promise it was just a dream.”

Bucky is shaking hard, both arms wrapped around his torso as he doubles over himself, head nearly touching his lap. The sound of his splintering gasps are loud in the quiet room, and Steve just wants to hold him, to pull him close, to let him cry and then drift off to sleep safe and warm and close. He won’t stop clawing at his shoulder. 

Steve reaches out with a tentative hand, brushing his fingertips over the back of Bucky’s neck, feeling the clammy skin there, and Bucky keens. 

“Oh, honey,” Steve murmurs. He bends forward, slotting his arm around Bucky’s waist and covering the slope of Bucky’s bent back with his own torso, trying to make Bucky feel as safe and as taken care of as Steve knows he needs to feel right now. Bucky presses into him, shuddering, and Steve gets a hand up under him and cups it over his flinching chest, just holding it there. Existing. Bucky is breathing way too fast. “Breathe for me, can you do that? Just breathe, in and out. Just like that, Bucky, good job,” he whispers.

Bucky clings to Steve’s forearm with both hands. He wilts further and further into Steve as time passes, his shudders subsiding, his sobs fading back into muffled whimpers, and Steve doesn’t loosen his hold one time. 

Eventually, when Bucky is almost completely quiet, Steve gathers him up and then lays him down, keeping Bucky in his arms because Bucky hasn’t tried to get out of them yet. Bucky’s eyes are still closed, and tear tracks stain his soft round cheeks, make his skin silvery-bright in the moonlight. Steve brushes them away with the side of his thumb. 

They stay that way for a while: Bucky’s breath going back to normal, and Steve cradling him close, murmuring soft things to Bucky as both of their pulses slowly tick down. 

“Sorry,” Bucky says after a moment, voice like it’s been run through a paper shredder. He still won’t look at Steve. There are tears gathered like constellations in the inky black of his eyelashes, and he still won’t look at Steve. “Steve… I forget I’m not still there, sometimes.”

Steve wonders where “there” is. God, he’s terrified to know.

“Hush,” Steve says. He tucks a few sweat-slick strands of hair behind Bucky’s ear, noticing the shaky little gasp that movement gets out of Bucky. He drops his hand back down to Bucky’s chest, and rubs a slow, even circle over his beating heart. “You don’t have to apologize, or explain. That’s none of my business” 

Bucky frowns, the plush pout of his lips pronounced for a few seconds, and then his eyelashes flutter and he’s looking up at Steve, eyes wide and haunted and so, so sorry. “Steve,” he says, one hand coming up to cover Steve’s where it rests upon his chest. “I want… please,” he says, and his voice wavers in the middle, and Steve holds him a little bit closer. 

“Ok, honey,” Steve breathes, letting Bucky turn in towards him, letting Bucky bury his face in Steve’s neck. He wonders why he’s calling him that. He decides that here, in the dark, it doesn’t matter, and he wraps Bucky up in his arms. “If you want to.”

He doesn’t answer, for a moment. Steve traces a tiny circle over the top few notches of his spine, lips resting somewhere at the crown of Bucky’s head. 

“When I was overseas,” Bucky begins in a small voice, and oh, god. He’s shaking again. “I, um. I got captured. The rest of the guys I was with got away, but I’d tripped and fallen and twisted my ankle pretty badly and they didn’t know, and before they could realize I wasn’t with them anymore—” he stops, his breath hissing in sharply through his teeth, and Steve hugs him fiercely for a second. “Anyway,” Bucky whispers. “I was taken.”

Steve wants to say something, but he doesn’t think Bucky would appreciate the interruption. He settles for making sure the covers are pulled up to Bucky’s chin, smoothing a hand over the shape of his shoulder beneath the blankets.

“I was kept in a cell in Afghanistan for two months,” Bucky says. “I’ll spare you the details but, uh. I was. Routinely tortured.” His voice cracks, wobbling dangerously, as Steve’s stomach plummets to the soles of his feet. That protective flare in him is all-consuming. “By the time I was found, my arm was… gone. I don’t remember that part. I was pretty out of it for the last few weeks, and the first thing I remember is waking up in a bed in an army hospital, my arm missing from my shoulder down...”

His words trail away, lost in the way he’s still breathing harshly. Steve pulls back so that he can curl is palm over Bucky’s cheek, so that he can look him in the eye; Bucky is pale and exhausted, but he gives Steve a feeble smile. 

“It’s why I only work jobs from this side of things,” Bucky confesses, and there’s a hint of shame in that sentence, like he thinks he’s somehow less for it—and the guilt roars to life in Steve, deep and sour and acrid. He called Bucky a coward. He said all Bucky did was hide.  _ God.  _ “Don’t wanna risk my mind playing tricks on me, causing me to freak out and fuck up the whole mission. I can do it, I can do it all, I  _ have _ , I just… It’s too risky, and I never wanted to do anything violent with my life anyway. I figure this is enough.”

“God, Bucky,” Steve says, and he’s embarrassed to realize his own voice is tremulous, on the edge of tears now that he’s realized just how much Bucky’s been through in his relatively short life. There’s a dizzying mix of guilt and anger and sadness roiling in Steve’s gut. “I am so, so sorry.”

Bucky touches the back of Steve’s hand, his metal fingers cool on Steve’s warm flesh. He looks weary, and confused. “It’s not your fault, Stevie,” he says, low and ragged. “You got nothin’ to be sorry for.”

He sounds so young; so tired and scared, small and young, Brooklyn in his voice and hell in his eyes. Steve would roll on top of him and use his own body to shield him from everything, if he thought it would truly help. 

“I said such awful things to you,” Steve whispers. “And they weren’t true at all, and I’m so sorry.”

Bucky just looks at him. There are still tears trembling in the corners of his eyes, and his gray irises look like galaxies in this darkness, shimmering with unshed grief; his soft, pink mouth is loose and round, lips parted a little bit, and even though there are bruise-like wells beneath his eyes and lines creasing his forehead, he is the most beautiful man Steve has ever seen. 

“Thank you,” Bucky says finally. He is grave, but there’s that softness behind his words that Steve has come to expect—and adore. Steve’s heart beats fast as Bucky closes his eyes and rolls forward, burying his face back in Steve’s chest, and he hopes Bucky can’t hear it. 

They don’t speak for a while, lying still. Bucky’s hand is caught up in the fabric of Steve’s shirt, holding tight. 

“Why do you do it, Buck?” Steve asks softly, after both of their heart rates have settled, and they’re breathing easy once more. “You could have come home and been a writer, like you wanted. Hell, you could quit tomorrow and do that now, if you decided to.”

He doesn’t add that he knows Bucky hates this. He doesn’t need to. It’s evident in his voice. 

Bucky is quiet for a long time, and when he speaks, it’s slowly. 

“I left the war early,” he says quietly. “I got to leave, when all the other men and women in my unit had to stay and fight. What makes me any more special than them? What right do I have to live my dreams, when some of them didn’t even get to live to the age of twenty?”

And Steve—he knows how Bucky feels. The guilt that he’d felt after agreeing to come work for SHIELD instead of finishing his second tour has never really left him, even though he knows it’s irrational: he’d just traded out one form of serving the country for another, one form of taking down fascist regimes like HYDRA for another. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think about retiring, sometimes more than once, sometimes very seriously; doesn’t mean he thinks he doesn’t deserve to. 

“You went through so much,” Steve says. He’s running his fingers through Bucky’s loose curls absently, and Bucky sort of pushes his head back into Steve’s palm, seeking the contact. Steve holds him. “So much more than so many people. Don’t you think you should get to be happy?” 

Bucky’s voice is like gravel when he answer Steve, and it makes Steve want to cry all over again. “I’m not gonna be happy no matter what I do, Steve,” he says. He’s slurring with exhaustion, and his lips move against Steve’s neck, sending a shiver through Steve’s limbs. “I may as well be a miserable asshole while serving the people than somewhere else doing something boring.”

Steve’s grip around him convulses, accidentally pulling him even closer—but instead of resisting, Bucky comes with it, as snuggly and unresisting as a kitten. He just wants to be held, Steve thinks, and wonders why he’s never realized that all  _ he  _ wants to do is hold him back. 

“I think you can be happy, Bucky,” Steve murmurs, lips against his forehead. He feels the way Bucky’s face shifts into a smile at those words. “I promise you can.”

Steve will help him. Steve will make that his second job: make Bucky happy. For as long as possible. 

Bucky drifts to sleep in Steve’s arms after that. It takes Steve much longer.

***

The next morning, Bucky wakes up way too late to tell Steve goodbye. 

He stares up at the ceiling, sunlight soaking into his bones, oddly unmoored. He hates waking up early, hates it even more than he hates most other things, but he’s been doing it every day that Steve works lately, just to send him off. It feels wrong not to, now. 

Bucky crawls out of his burrow of blankets, a little bit dizzy as he places his bare feet flat on the cold floor. He feels hollow and aching like he always does after a nightmare, but… but somehow better than usual. Less destructive, less despairing. Less hopeless. 

He doesn’t bother going through the pretence of wondering why. He  _ knows _ why. 

Doesn’t mean he has to think it out loud, though. 

Stumbling to the bathroom as he rubs the sleep out of his eyes, Bucky sees that Natasha and Clint’s door is open, showing a poorly-made bed and an empty room. It’s well-past ten-thirty, so they’re definitely at the store by now. Bucky is by himself. 

He sighs as he hunts around for his toothbrush, leaning against the counter to keep him upright. He wishes Steve were here. He’s embarrassed about last night, sure, but Steve was so kind and… he wishes Steve were here. 

Glancing up at the mirror, Bucky catches sight of a piece of paper taped crookedly to the glass, and peels it of with careful fingers before he reads it. 

_ Bucky,  _

_ Morning, Sleeping Beauty. You were out like a light, so I didn’t bother to wake you, but there’s coffee and quiche downstairs for when you get up. Clint and Natasha are already gone, but they wanted me to remind you that they only work a half shift today, and not to miss “drink wine and bitch time” which I’m assuming is whatever happened last week. Not sure you remember that.  _

_ Anyway, I hope you have a great day!  _

_ <3 Steve _

“Fuck,” Bucky says loudly, groaning and letting his head fall forward into his hands. Steve is  _ so fucking great.  _ Why does he have to be like this? Why does he have to be hot  _ and _ nice? God, at least he’s a dumbass. At least he has one, singular, subpar quality. 

Although, based on recent events, Bucky seems to be all about  _ that _ quality, too. 

And that little heart? That stupid, silly, fucking adorable little heart? It’s about to make Bucky swoon. 

“Damn you, Steve Rogers,” Bucky hisses to the room at large, before he folds up the note and decides to keep it safe forever. 

***

“So you seem stressed,” Sam says, dropping to the couch next to Bucky. 

Bucky is furiously knitting a pair of socks, but his finger are clumsy and he keeps dropping stitches, and he wants to turn his earpiece on and listen to Steve for a while but that’s stupid and unecessary because his tracker hasn’t pinged so obviously he’s in one place still, and he’s embarrassed about last night, and he’s constantly worried while Steve is at work now, and he definitely, definitely has an enormous crush on Steve, and generally things are just pretty shitty. 

“I’m fine,” Bucky says, trying to clack his needles together as loudly as he can to telegraph annoyance. Unfortunately, he only uses wooden needles to avoid the metal scratching up his left hand, so the sound is not satisfying at all. 

Sam raises an eyebrow at him, a gesture that Bucky only catches out of the corner of his eye. “How’s Steve?”

Bucky blows out a long, slow breath, slumping back into the cushions in defeat. Sam has such a soothing and nice voice, perfect for getting deep dark secrets out of moody neighbors. Ugh. 

“He’s fine,” Bucky says, dropping the socks into his lap. He can see the rest of the room turn to look at him, not even bothering to hide their interest, so he sighs with a huff and raises his voice. He hates having to repeat himself. “At least, I think he his. It’s not like I can talk to him while he’s at work. I just…” he shrugs. Everyone is giving him sympathetic looks, and it’s nice to be validated. “I worry about him,” he finishes in a small voice .

He’s uncomfortable with how true it is. He  _ does  _ worry about Steve, all the time. Ever since that night he’d almost gotten caught by Pierce, Bucky has lived in constant fear that Steve’s cover will be blown while he’s at the mansion one day and Pierce will hurt him, or worse. It’s a living, breathing fear, one that buzzes in the back of his mind unrelentingly. 

Sam squeezes Bucky’s shoulder, his standard gesture of goodwill. It works… annoyingly well. “I’m sure he’s fine, Bucky,” Sam says, giving Bucky a smile. Around the room, everyone else is nodding, shooting him reassuring looks of their own, and Bucky is struck suddenly with just how much he likes these people. “I mean, he looks like he could take about six men in a fight and not get bruised. Any danger he might be in—which really probably isn’t a lot?—I’m ninety-nine percent sure he can just punch his way out of.”

Bucky laughs. It’s a bit weary, but still, he laughs. “Yeah,” he says, eyes on his lap. He thinks of Steve holding him last night, of how his close, steady warmth had done so much to help Bucky calm down. He thinks of Steve telling him that he believes in Bucky’s happiness. He swallows, hands wound together upon his thighs. “I just love him, you know?” 

“Well, you married him,” says Clint, grinning. Bucky grins back, but he knows it falls flat. 

“I know how you feel, Bucky,” Riley says from his position across the room. He’s been mostly silent all afternoon, smiling as he knit and watched the rest of them chat, but his voice is loud and clear now. “After I was discharged and Sam had to finish his tour, I was terrified every damn day of my life until he came home to me.” Sam leans across the couch and takes Riley’s hand in his, and Riley smiles at him, his eyes so soft and full of love that Bucky has to look away. This lie is making his heart ache. “Loving him almost makes it worse, doesn’t it?”

Bucky doesn’t want to answer. He can’t, not yet. He isn’t ready. “Sorry to drag you all down like that,” he says instead of answering, shrugging awkwardly as he picks up his socks and clumsily starts untangling the mess of yarn he’d created. He feels Natasha’s eyes on him, unrelenting. “In a melancholy mood today, I guess.”

“Man, that’s completely fine,” Sam says, and there’s enough levity in his voice that Bucky feels the knot of tension behind his ribs slowly begin to unwind. 

“Did I tell you guys about that thing I figured out Lucky could do the other day?” Clint says, and Bucky sinks back into the fluffiness of the couch as his friend’s voices wash over him, ignoring the question in Natasha’s eyes and the answer he knows rests just below the surface of his skin.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HALLOWEEN and KISSING and REALIZATIONS

“We can’t hand out candy at our own house tonight,” Natasha says, scraping up the last of the pasta sauce from her plate with the side of her fork. Steve watches Bucky watching her smugly out of the corner of his eye, laughing to himself. “So do you two go in for that sort of thing?”

It takes Steve a second to realize that Bucky is looking at him quizzically. He starts, glancing at Natasha as the tips of his ears go hot, and she gives him a stare that is nothing but amused. He feels distinctly flayed open. 

“Uh, I guess?” Steve says, trying to gauge Bucky’s reaction. They haven’t talked about this yet. Steve wants to say yes, because he hasn’t handed out candy since his mom was alive and it’s fun to see kids enjoying themselves so much, but he doesn’t wanna force Bucky into something that  _ he  _ won’t enjoy. 

“‘Course,” Bucky says, and grins at Steve. “Don’t want those halloween sweaters I bought for us last week to go to waste.”

“Oh god,” Steve says. 

“ _ Nice,”  _ Clint says, and high fives Bucky over the table. 

“So you’re welcome to join us,” Steve says, steering the conversation back around. “If you want.”

Natasha gets up to rinse her plate and put it in the dishwasher. They’ve told her, over the course of the four nights she and Clint have been here, that she doesn’t have to do that, but she doesn’t listen. “Great, thanks,” she says over the rush of the water. “We’ll bring a bunch of bags of tiny, shitty candy so you don’t have to waste your money on it.”

The rest of them stand, too. “Get peanut butter cups,” Bucky says. “They’re my favorite.”

Clint and Nat help them clear up, and Steve grabs Bucky’s hand as he’s walking by, pulling him in and kissing him quickly on the temple. “That was really good, Buck,” he says. He’s rewarded with that small rosey smile he loves so much, tucked behind Bucky’s curtain of hair. “Thank you.”

“Yeah,” Bucky murmurs happily, and ducks out of Steve’s hold to go turn on the dishwasher. 

***

At Pierce’s mansion, Steve hovers stiffly outside Pierce’s office door—his usual position and stance, thumbs hooked on either side of his belt buckle—and watches people scurry by. 

They’re all in costume. Only Steve appears to be in his required uniform. It’s deeply unsettling. 

It’s a little past five, and Steve is restless, itching to get home to Bucky in time for them and Natasha and Clint to set up for trick or treat at seven. He can’t leave until Pierce dismisses him, even though he technically makes his own schedule. He shifts back and forth on his feet—more movement than he usually allows himself—and smiles as he thinks about how excited Bucky’d been at the prospect of Halloween sweaters. He had refused to show Steve, claiming they were ‘a surprise, how can you be surprised if I  _ show you,  _ that’s right you  _ can’t _ .’ It’d been no trouble at all for Steve to fall back, perfectly content not to know. He finds he likes to give Bucky what he wants. 

The door behind Steve opens, and he allows himself the tiniest sigh of relief as he turns around to face Pierce. Already his mind is at home, imagining Bucky there laughing with Nat and Clint as the three of them wait for Steve, imagining the smile on Bucky’s face— 

“Captain Rogers,” Pierce says, and Steve snaps out of his fantasy and really looks at Pierce. For some reason, the image that is presented before him makes him shiver, a slick, cold thing dripping down his spine. “You didn’t dress up today?”

Steve tries to keep his eyes on Pierce’s face, instead of… anywhere else. “I must not have gotten the memo,” he says, “sir.”

Pierce’s lips twitch up on one side. Steve thinks he’s supposed to take that as a smile. “Apparently,” he says. 

They stand there in the hallway, neither of them moving, neither of them speaking.

Pierce’s eyebrows shoot up. “Well?” he asks, and gestures at himself. “Don’t you like my costume?”

No. Steve doesn’t like his costume. Steve hates his costume, and he can’t quite put his finger on why. It’s not like it’s showy, or gory, or anything like that; in fact, it’s rather plain as costumes go, boring and not very time consuming. 

Pierce is in his standard work clothes, a gray suit and undershirt and tie, and his face is bare, but affixed somehow to his collar are three heads: serpent heads, it looks like, dead-eyed, made of rubber. They flop lifelessly around his shoulders.

“A sea monster,” Steve says, nodding. He finds that he’s backed up a few paces, inching himself closer and closer to the elevator that will take him out of here. “It’s. Nice.”

Pierce’s lips quirk again, a bigger movement this time. It’s definitely a smile, and it is cold and it is terrible. “Something like that,” he says softly. His eyes blink, slow, and the serpents' eyes stare blankly out at Steve. “Tell your husband I said hello.”

***

Bucky is out on the porch with Natasha and Clint when Steve gets home, standing against the railing, forearms resting there. He’s clutching a mug of tea, laughing over his shoulder at something one of them has said; he turns and looks as Steve jogs up the steps, and he smiles. 

“We’ve still got an hour, you know,” Steve says. He waves at Nat and Clint, who are seated together on the porch swing, both drinking from mugs that match Bucky’s. They’re in costume: Natasha, in a black bodysuit with whiskers painted in a careful hand on her cheeks, and Clint as Robin Hood. “Hey, guys,” Steve says. “Nice outfits.”

“What are you, an assassin?” Clint asks, gesturing at Steve’s black uniform, and he looks ridiculously proud of the amused giggle this gets out of Nat.

“Ha-fuckin-ha,” Bucky says, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. He takes grabs Steve’s elbow and begins to walk him towards the front door, turning his head to press a quick, distracted kiss to Steve’s shoulder, and Steve smiles down at him. “Dinner’s inside, if you want some,” Bucky says, opening the door and ushering Steve through. “I just heated up leftovers.”

“Sounds good, Buck,” Steve says happily. Now that he’s home, he feels some of the tension start to bleed out of him, feels the way he relaxes into Bucky. He doesn’t want to think about what that means.

“You always say that,” Bucky says, laughing a little. 

Steve’s smile feels full, splitting. “It’s always true.”

Bucky pokes him in the side, fond. 

“You got our sweaters ready?” Steve asks. 

Bucky grins as he rests his hand in the small of Steve’s back and steers him into the kitchen. “‘Course I do,” he says, and Steve wonders if he knows that he’s stroking a circle over Steve’s hipbone with his thumb. “Just thought I’d wait for you to put mine on.”

Steve leans into Bucky just a very small amount, just enough that he feels some more of Bucky’s solid, soft warmth leaking into his side. Bucky sets him down at the table, pushing lightly on Steve’s shoulder to get him to sit, and Steve goes easily but clasps Bucky’s hand close on the way down, keeping both hands wrapped around his fingers. 

“Bucky,” he says, looking up at him, seeing the way Bucky is looking back, all round and surprised and fond, his hair loose around his face, his cheeks pink, and doesn’t know what he’s even trying to say. He just settles for smiling helplessly, because there’s something all twisted up in his chest tonight, something that makes emotions feel closer to the surface than they usually are. 

Bucky looks down at him, his eyes crinkling at the corners. There are little bags around them still, shadows, but Steve thinks maybe that they’re lighter than they usually are. He hopes, suddenly and with more force than he’s prepared for, that Bucky is happy right now. 

“Idiot,” says Bucky quietly. 

“Asshole,” Steve murmurs back. 

“Sweetheart,” Bucky whispers, and kisses the corner of his mouth. 

He’s up and across the kitchen before Steve can say or do anything, moving in jerkier motions than he usually does as he pulls a plate of food out of the fridge. Steve can see his dusky cheeks as he spins on his heel and pops it into the microwave and hits a few buttons, and Bucky won’t meet his eyes as he flees the room, murmuring “Your sweater’s on the bed.”

Steve sits perfectly still, staring forward blindly. He jumps when the microwave beeps, signalling that his food is done, and he eats it without tasting it. 

Bucky  _ kissed him.  _

On the corner of the mouth, sure, but that’s still much closer to Steve’s lips than Bucky’s been since that first day when they’d kissed with so much hatred between them that it’d felt more like a fight than anything. And he called him  _ sweetheart.  _

Nat and Clint are outside, Steve reminds himself. Bucky probably thought they were listening in, Steve tries to tell himself. It didn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything. 

(It means something.)

He rinses his plate and puts it in the dishwasher before heading upstairs, taking one step at a time slowly. When he gets to their room, Bucky is inside, sitting on the edge of the mattress and staring with an unfocused gaze at the floor. 

“You know,” Steve starts, his voice still annoyingly shaky, and Bucky jumps slightly and looks at him fast, like he’s been caught out doing something bad. Steve takes a few steps into the room, and Bucky tracks him with widened eyes. “You know, I think you might be right.”

Bucky’s lips are parted slightly, showing a little sliver of pink tongue. “You think I might be right,” he repeats blankly. 

Steve knows his face is flaming, but there is physically nothing he can do to make himself settle down short of flee. And he never flees. “Yeah,” he says, scratching at his beard just to give his hands something to do. “Um, by acting more like a couple when Natasha and Clint are here. You know, touching more and… being more physically affectionate. Around them. Just ‘cause, I mean, we don’t want them to suspect anything, right? So I just thought, if you want, or, or think we should…”

“I want to,” Bucky says slightly too loudly. He clenches his jaw after the words burst out of him, sinking back a little onto his hands which are propped against the mattress. He is blinking up at Steve, his eyes big and earnest, and Steve wants to push him down onto that bed and crawl on top of him and— “I think we should.”

Steve nods. He nods again. He’s nodding too much. He can’t stop nodding. “Ok,” he says, and there’s a very slight wheeze in his breath that he hopes like hell Bucky can’t hear. “Alright.”

Bucky covers the bottom half of his face with one hand, trying his best to hide the smile that’s spilling out from the edges. 

***

Steve looks good in his sweater, Bucky thinks, even though it’s literally the ugliest thing on god’s green earth. Bucky just guessed at the size, and he’s satisfied with the result: it’s tight enough to make his arms and shoulders look good, but loose enough that he still looks soft and cuddly, and not even the rows and rows of misshapen, neon-orange Jack-o’-lanterns can detract from his overall appearance. 

Bucky bought himself the same one. He thought it seemed like the couple-y thing to do. 

“Happy Halloween!” Steve says as he drops a handful of mini Snickers into a little girl’s purple pumpkin bucket. He’s smiling with two full rows of teeth, excited and clearly happy beneath the beard, and Bucky can’t help but sit so close that he’s almost on top of him, can’t help but rest his head on the muscle of his shoulder as he watches. 

Bucky, Steve, Nat, and Clint are all seated on the porch steps, each with a bowl full of candy at their feet that they can distribute from. Next door, Bucky can see Sam and Riley sitting outside, a string of bright orange lights around the edge of their roof, and occasionally the six of them smile or wave across their yards. 

“You’re gonna run out of candy if you don’t give out smaller handfuls,” Bucky observes mildly, but he knows he’s smiling as he says it. He likes how generous Steve is; he likes how devoted Steve is to bringing other people joy, even if it’s just in the form of extra treats on Halloween. 

Steve dips one big hand into his bowl, fishing out a piece of candy and then unwrapping it with careful fingers. He holds it out towards Bucky in his palm, the edges of his lips curling with something like happiness; Bucky beams when he sees it. It’s a peanut butter cup. 

“There’s plenty,” Steve says in response, and he lifts the candy closer to Bucky, urging him to take it with a gentle tilt of his head and a palm brushed over his arm. “Go on.”

Bucky eats it, trying not to smile around the burst of chocolate and peanuts on his tongue and utterly failing. He licks his lips, laughing helplessly under his breath, but then he freezes: because Steve’s eyes are on his mouth, avid and fixed. 

A wave of heat rolls through Bucky, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, rampaging him like a wildfire. He reaches out unsteadily, unmoored by this feeling that’s crashing through him in wave after wave, and his fingers grip the warm knit of Steve’s sleeve. Steve’s pale eyelashes fan across the tops of his cheeks, gold in the light from the porch like they’ve been brushed with stardust; when he looks up at Bucky, his irises are the kind of blue that reminds Bucky of desert fevers and summer days, bright and addictive. 

Steve leans in. 

“Trick or treat!”

Bucky doesn’t move away. He can’t. He can’t even look away, his eyes glued to the side of Steve’s face as Steve rips his gaze from Bucky’s and smiles shakily at the kids in front of him, dumping an absolutely heaping handful of candy into their buckets with one hand, gripping the meat of Bucky’s thigh like his life depends on it with the other. 

The kids skip away and Steve turns to Bucky in the time it takes for Bucky to blink his eyes, his right hand switching to grip Bucky’s far thigh, his left arm sliding like a band of steel around Bucky’s waist. He is close, close, close; Bucky’s senses are full of Steve, the warm, comfortable scent of him, the aura of heat that surrounds him, the bright, vivid light he seems to put off. 

Bucky leans in. 

When Steve kisses him, Bucky stops breathing. 

Steve’s hand slides up Bucky’s thigh, over his hip, along his ribs; it rests against the back of his neck as he gets his fingers in Bucky’s hair, lightly scratching his scalp, and Bucky breaks out into shivers as Steve brushes their lips together once, twice, three times. A deluge of constellations burst out against the backdrop of Bucky’s eyelids and he makes a noise, an involuntary gasp, a shiver of air that passes through the space between them. Steve swallows it up with the press of his mouth to Bucky’s. 

Bucky wants to sink into this sensation, bury himself in so deep that it’ll be impossible to find his way back out again. Steve’s beard rasps against Bucky’s stubbled cheeks, and the way it burns makes Bucky want to cry out with something, or pull Steve all the way on top of him so he’s crushed between the hard steps and Steve’s familiar bulk. 

“There are children present,” Natasha says mildly, and Bucky’s brain only half-registers the fact that someone is even speaking because when Steve pulls back, their lips drag against each other, still closed and dry but with enough of a promise of more that Bucky almost groans out loud. 

He’s clinging to Steve, Bucky realizes, his hands clutching the fabric stretched over Steve’s broad back, but he can’t make himself let go; Steve’s eyes have gone dark as they scan Bucky’s face over and over and over again, his mouth open a little bit, his color high. 

“Are you ok?” Steve asks Bucky so earnestly, and Bucky laughs like he’s panting, something so tangled welling up in his throat that he has to lean forward and curl until his face is against Steve’s neck and Steve’s mouth is in his hair. 

Steve holds him for a little while. Bucky listens to the sound of children as they come and go from their porch, watching with the one eye that isn’t buried in Steve’s sweater as Steve drops candy into their waiting hands with his free arm, and keeps Bucky close with the other. On the other end of the wide steps, Clint and Natasha sit, their legs tangled up together and stretched out on the sidewalk, taking care of the kids that come from the other direction. 

A little girl in a Wonder Woman costume comes up to Steve, stretching out her plastic bag already half-full with a shy look from under her clouds of black hair. “Trick or treat,” she says, soft enough that Bucky can barely hear her over the racket of everyone else out tonight. She’s standing a good four feet away, way too far for them to get anything safely in her bag. 

“It’s Wonder Woman!” Steve says eagerly, and the girl’s smile broadens. Bucky turns his head out of Steve’s neck to watch, but when he moves to sit up Steve tugs him closer, so Bucky just stays leaning against him. “Look, Buck!” 

Bucky grins at her, taking one hand away from Steve’s waist to give her a little wave. Her eyes catch on the flashing metal of his fingers but don’t linger, and that makes him smile. “Oh wow, Wonder Woman!” says Bucky, infusing his voice with as much awe as he can. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

“Wanna come here so I can give you some candy?” Steve asks, and Bucky watches as the girl shuffles forward towards them. He can see two women standing behind her, watching all of this with fond looks, and he gives them a polite nod when he meets their eye, flushing when they mouth  _ ‘thank you.’  _

Wonder Woman skips off a few moments later with a bag considerably more full than it was before she stopped by, an enormous grin on her face. Steve, still with his arm wrapped tightly around Bucky, is smiling distantly at the empty sidewalk before them. 

Bucky watches him for a minute before he speaks, appreciating the curve of his lips, the crooked slope of his nose. “Do you want kids?” Bucky asks him, quiet so Natasha and Clint can’t hear. 

Steve doesn’t shrug the question off, or make light of it. He sits for a second, still but for the steady run of his fingertips up and down Bucky’s side, before he answers. 

“I think so,” he says, matching his tone to Bucky’s: quiet. Subdued. “I mean. Yes. I always have.” He stops, lets out a puff of air that might be trying to be a laugh. “It’s not like I’ve ever had time for anything like that though.”

To their right, Natasha and Clint are laughing loudly at some sort of joke one or the other of them had made, their voices mingling in the air. Bucky thinks about the conversation he and Steve had had the other night, when Steve asked him if he thought he deserved to be happy: he wonders if Steve thinks he himself does. 

“You could have time,” Bucky says. He doesn’t know why he’s talking, acting like this is something he knows anything about—it’s just that the thought of Steve wanting something that he can’t have is a terrible one. Bucky knows how that feels. “After this job. Just… just stop. Make time.”

Steve turns his face in to the side of Bucky’s head, his lips pressed to his cheek, his nose in Bucky’s hair. Bucky lets his eyes fall shut. 

“I could say the same to you,” Steve murmurs. 

It’s true. God, Bucky knows it’s true; he doesn’t want to be doing what he does—he hates this. He’s miserable. But it’s all he knows, and it’s what he deserves, and how can he be certain that happiness is any closer in grasp if he retires than if he stays at SHIELD until somebody shoots him or he dies of old age? 

The four of them sit outside until the streets are empty of costumed kids and their harried parents. Sam and Riley join them in their yard, and they sit together and watch the light fade from the sky, until all that remains are porch lights and fairy lights and the last of the year's winking, darting fireflies. Sam and Clint are ranking the best costumes they saw throughout the night, and Riley and Nat are providing quiet commentary; Steve and Bucky sit quietly, watching, laughing when they feel the urge. 

Eventually, Sam and Riley wander back to their house. Clint and Nat turn in not long after that, heading up to their room and leaving Steve and Bucky alone on the steps. 

Crickets chirp in the grass around them, sending off their last songs before the November cold gets them. 

“Are you happy right now, Buck?” Steve asks him softly before they go inside for the night, his voice fervent like he means it. 

This isn’t a crush. That truth that’s been looming over Bucky for a while now at last crashes over him as he looks into Steve’s eyes, leaving him with the filled-up, wrung-out certainty that what he feels for Agent Steve Rogers is definitely not just a crush. 

“Yeah, Stevie,” Bucky says, and he means it, even though he’s a disaster zone and nothing he’s wishing for in this moment will ever be real. He’s happy, in this instant, in these seconds of euphoria where he’s in love and reality hasn’t smothered him yet. He’s happy with Steve. “I am.”


	12. Chapter 12

It’s raining hard when Steve pulls up outside the house a few days into November, streaking the windshield with a river of water. He forgot to bring an umbrella this morning, even though Bucky, while watching the weather channel, told him he should, so Steve sighs and tucks his chin to his chest and makes a break for the front door. He skids on the grass, and jogs up the steps, and flings open the door. 

Dripping gloriously onto the hardwood floor, Steve shivers as he hangs up his keys and steps out of his boots. He can hear muffled voices floating out of the kitchen, the sound of a running tap, Bucky’s low, scratchy laugh; he follows those sounds with a smile. 

Clint and Natasha are sitting at the counter, Bucky standing at the oven before them. He’s wearing one of Steve’s t-shirts and a pair of leggings, his arms bare; the skin of his neck beneath the messy knot of his bun is pale and smooth, stretched thin over the top of his spine, and that’s where Steve lets his lips settle as his hands make a circle around Bucky’s waist. 

“Hey, Steve,” Clint says, but Steve doesn’t really hear it as Bucky leans back into him for a few seconds. Steve’s fingertips sink gently into the soft layer of padding over Bucky’s hips, and his heart surges in his chest once, twice, three times. 

“You’re all wet,” Bucky says, and steps away from the curl of Steve’s hands, but he smiles with his eyes at Steve, and Steve knows he’s smiling dopily back. 

Steve wanders over to the counter, leaning against it as he watches Bucky bend to take a loaf of bread out of the oven. The swell of his ass is mightily distracting. 

When Bucky straightens he catches his eye, mock-scowling at him. The heat of the oven has made his face pink, and in the golden glow of the kitchen, he looks warm, huggable. “Go get changed,” Bucky says, nodding in the direction of the stairs because his hands are still full. “You’re dripping all over my kitchen.”

Steve salutes sloppily, heaving himself back up to standing. “Yessir,” he says, and he smiles at Nat when she laughs, because he’s in a good mood today. 

He changes fast, not really paying attention to what he pulls out of his and Bucky’s shared closet and throws on. Sweatshirt, sweatpants, dry socks: the air freezes his skin in the short interim between outfits, and he pulls on the softest things he can find, heading back downstairs as fast as he can. 

“Those are my socks,” Bucky says as soon as Steve walks back into the kitchen. He’s pointing at Steve’s feet with a paring knife in one hand, eyebrows furrowed. 

“That’s Steve’s shirt,” Natasha says, and Steve laughs as he pats Bucky’s cheek consolingly, taking the knife from his hand and starting to chop the green onions sitting on the cutting board. 

“Thank you, Natasha,” Steve says primly. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Bucky trying to keep looking pissed off, but failing quite spectacularly. It makes Steve smile. 

He and Bucky finish assembling dinner, and then the four of them migrate to the table together as they begin to eat. Bucky tangles his legs with Steve’s beneath the tablecloth, and Steve smiles down into his soup and doesn’t say anything. 

***

Natasha’s phone rings as they’re cleaning up, and she heads into the other room to answer it while Clint stares after her curiously. “She never answers her phone,” Clint says in response to Bucky and Steve’s questioning eyebrows. “It’s like, a character trait at this point.”

“Not even when it’s you?” Bucky asks, scrubbing at a pot in the sink. 

Clint looks at Bucky like he’s a cute but stupid dog. “I don’t  _ call her,”  _ he says, and leaves it at that. 

“House is done,” Natasha says, strolling back into the kitchen. She ruffles Clint’s hair in passing, grinning over at Steve and Bucky. “So I guess we won’t need to use up your spare room any longer, boys.”

Steve very carefully does not look at Bucky. He’s not quite sure how to feel about this—or rather he knows completely how he  _ should  _ feel, he’s just not positive how he  _ does _ . 

No Nat and Clint means the spare room is free again. The spare room being free again means Steve doesn’t have to sleep with Bucky anymore. 

“That’s ok,” Bucky says, and Steve thinks he sounds a bit cautious, a bit strained. “It’s not like we’re gonna use it, are we, Steve?”

Steve turns away to hide his smile. This isn’t how he should feel, but there’s nothing he can do about it. 

“No, we’re not,” Steve says. 

Nat and Clint go off to pack their things, making a racket as the move around upstairs. Bucky and Steve are quiet, but before Bucky leaves the room to go help them he trails the tips of his fingers along Steve’s lower back, and Steve closes his eyes. 

***

Later, much later, after they’ve driven Natasha and Clint and their belongings back across the street, Steve finds Bucky curled up under the covers of their big bed, his eyes closed as he listens to the rain pound the windows. 

Steve’s weight dips the mattress as he sits down on the edge. Bucky smiles. 

“Wanna finish Moonrise Kingdom?” Steve asks softly. The note in his tone is cautious, halfway scared; Bucky rolls his head on the pillow to look at Steve, smiling before their eyes even meet as Steve worries at the leather case of the iPad in his hands. 

“Sure,” Bucky says, low and soft and mild, and his smile grows soft at the shaky breath of relief Steve lets out. 

Eagerly, Steve peels back the covers and nestles between them, starting off close enough to Bucky that they’re nearly on each other’s sides of the bed. Bucky laughs almost soundlessly at the way Steve moves so quickly, and Steve can’t even find it within himself to be embarrassed as he stretches his arm out along the tops of their pillows, pulling Bucky in as Bucky falls towards him. 

He sets the iPad up on his bent knees, tapping the screen until he finds the movie they’d gotten halfway through last night before getting too tired to keep their eyes open any longer. It’s charming, unique in the way it’s shot, symmetrical enough to be highly pleasing to Steve’s dormant artist’s eye; plus Bucky laughs in all the right places, and has a look on his face like he’s enjoying it every other time, so Steve would watch it anyway. 

They sink in towards each other as the movie goes on, getting closer and closer until they’re resting completely on each other, limbs twined together, heads touching. Steve slips his fingers into Bucky’s hair, scratching his scalp very lightly with the blunt ends of his nails, and Bucky lets out a shivery sigh, and they stay that way. 

Drowsy. Comfortable. Warm. Steve could live in this moment very happily for the rest of his life, he thinks. 

Eventually, Bucky’s breath evens out to where Steve is positive that he’s fallen asleep. He pauses the movie and tips his head back to look anyway, and his chest catches at the sight that he sees: Bucky’s face soft and relaxed, none of the scowl or frown of when he’s awake, sweet and young and vulnerable. His eyelashes quiver over his cheeks, and his lips look petal-soft. His hair is a tumbled-down mess of curls around his face. 

Steve powers down the iPad. He sets it on the nightstand and then he flicks the lamp off, leaving them in darkness. He lifts Buckys lightly, maneuvering him down the mattress until they’re laying together, and then he shuts his eyes and he goes to sleep. 

***

Steve is standing over Bucky, his hands wound together tightly over his stomach, his expression distinctly guiltily. 

“Steve,” Bucky says, exasperated. He’s sitting cross-legged on the couch, blanket thrown over his lap as he watches Say Yes To The Dress, and Steve is interrupting the juicy part where all of Angelina’s relatives degrade her fashion choices. “Spit it out, pal.”

“So,” Steve says, dropping to sit next to Bucky on the couch, his hands moving to grasp his bent knees. He blinks at Bucky dolefully, and Bucky doesn’t know whether to be amused or annoyed. “So, the ten year anniversary of Pierce Plants is coming up in a few days.”

Bucky looks at him. “I don’t see how that warrants all of…” he waves a hand vaguely in Steve’s direction. “This.”

“Pierce is having a party,” Steve says, with an expression like he’s being asked to eat glass. “And he’s asked all of his employees to come and to bring a plus one.” 

The unspoken end of that sentence is there:  _ and I need to bring you.  _

Bucky sighs. He really, really doesn’t want to go. 

“I tried to get out of it,” Steve says apologetically, flicking a glance up at Bucky. He’s frowning, his brow furrowed. “I know you don’t wanna come.” His voice goes low. “I don’t even want you there.”

Bucky stares, honestly a little shocked. The feelings take a moment to reverberate through him, and when they do, his limbs feel panic-heavy. He flinches, a delayed reaction. “Jesus, Rogers,” he says, leaning away, looking away. “That was a bit harsh.” 

Steve stares at him for a moment, uncomprehending, before his eyes go wide and he leans across the couch towards Bucky, hands gripping Bucky’s on top of the blanket. “No!” Steve says, eyes wide, and some of that hurt leaks out of Bucky at the sight of him. “No, fuck, I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant—” he breaks off, gaze settling somewhere over Bucky’s shoulder as he searches for the words, his thumbs rubbing distracted—if settling—circles at the base of Bucky’s wrists. “Pierce is creepy as hell,” he finally says, shrugging. “I know he’s doing something terrible, and as soon as I can find out what, I’m getting him thrown in jail. Until then, I don’t want anyone I care about near him, especially not after he’s showed some sort of fucked up interest in you.” He shrugs again, a nervous habit, and his cheeks are scarlet. “Just. I just wanna keep you safe.”

This right here. This is why Bucky’s head over heels for him. 

“I’ll be fine, Steve,” he says, giving Steve a smile, hoping it isn’t as lovelorn as he feels. “I can take care of myself.”

Steve gives Bucky that smile where his eyebrows slant up towards each other in the middle, and his eyes go all soft, and Bucky’s stomach swoops wildly. “I know that, Buck,” he says. “You’re a grown man—you work for SHIELD of course I know that.” He touches the side of Bucky’s face, just once, very softly. “Doesn’t mean I can’t do my best to protect you, though.”

Bucky’s mouth is dry, his heart working overtime in the too-small cavern of his ribs. “Alright, I’ll come, you convinced me,” he jokes weakly, trying to lighten the conversation before he does something stupid like cry or climb into Steve’s lap and never climb back out. 

Steve squeezes both of Bucky’s hands in his. “We don’t have to stay the whole time,” he says. He scoots across the cushions until he’s next to Bucky, and Bucky helps him spread the blanket over his own lap. “We just gotta go, say hi to Pierce, maybe snoop around a little, and get out.”

“What am I supposed to wear to this kinda shindig?” Bucky asks, leaning his temple against Steve’s shoulder. The fabric of Steve’s blue flannel feels soft against Bucky’s cheek. “What’s the dress code, here?”

“Doesn’t really matter, I don’t think,” Steve says. He’s still holding one of Bucky’s hands, resting the knot of their entwined fingers in the space between their thighs. “Just dress how you want to. You always look pretty.”

Bucky turns his face in to Steve’s arm, going warm all over at the compliment. “Thanks,” he mumbles. 

Steve shifts away so that Bucky’s face is exposed. The laugh lines around his eyes are delicate and thin, beautiful when he smiles. “You’re welcome, honey,” he says, and Bucky dives right back in against Steve’s side again, something shivery-bright in the middle of his sternum. 

***

Bucky ends up going with a soft black turtleneck tucked into a pair of high-waisted jeans, leaving his boots unlaced because he thinks it looks cool. Steve is wearing the sweater Bucky knit him, so Bucky steals Steve’s leather jacket again, feeling the weight of Steve’s fond look on his skin and soaking it in like water fading into sand. 

Pierce’s party is at his mansion. Bucky thinks he should have it somewhere else, since it’s full of his employees and a lot of them have to be at his mansion like Steve all day anyway, but Pierce most definitely does not care what Bucky thinks, so. Here they are. 

They park in the same space Steve always parks in, and Bucky whistles low under his breath as he gets a look at the quality of vehicle that they’re among tonight. “Pierce must have important guests here,” Bucky says, eyeing a Benz to the left of their beat up car. 

Steve locks the car behind them and then immediately reaches for Bucky’s hand, tucking himself close. He seems antsy tonight, constantly on edge; his eyes are darting around every nook and cranny of the parking garage, like he expects someone to leap out and shoot them at any second. His palm is warm, and his fingers are clammy. “Uh huh,” he says. “He invited everyone he knows. This is gonna be the most disgusting party you’ve ever been to.”

“Free booze, though,” Bucky says, hoping to get at least a chuckle out of Steve. The corner of Steve’s mouth lifts, but he still looks more worried than he needs to be, so Bucky stops walking in the middle of the floor and turns to face Steve. 

“Buck,” Steve says, and then just sort of looks at Bucky, blinking fast. Both of Bucky’s hands are on Steve’s shoulders, and he’s leaning in, their faces inches away. 

“We’re gonna be fine,” Bucky says firmly, making sure Steve meets his eyes and holds them. “Pierce isn’t gonna get up to any funny business tonight, not with all these rich bastards here to see him make a fool of himself. Hell, he might not even  _ see  _ us.”

Steve blows out a breath of air, his shoulders slumping. 

“You’re right,” he sighs, and  _ wow, _ Bucky doesn’t think he’s ever heard those words come out of Steve Rogers’ mouth before. It’s satisfying. “I’m just being paranoid.”

Bucky smiles wryly. “Believe me, I get it,” he says. “You’re talking to the most paranoid bastard on the face of the earth, here. But you have absolutely no cause to be, not tonight.”

“Just…” Steve stops. He looks like he’s debating on whether or not to say something, so Bucky gives his shoulders a little shake. “Stick close to me, ok?” Steve says, finishing with conviction. “Just in case. Please.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. He swallows, and nods. God. Steve is so good. “Yeah, Steve. Of course.”

They go up the elevator quietly. When the metal doors slide open, the buzz and clatter of hundreds of talking, laughing voices assaults their ears. The sound is all coming from the ballroom at the end of the hallway, big double doors closed.

“Can’t this man decorate his damn hallway?” Bucky asks as they walk, their steps getting slower and slower the closer they get to the doors. The green carpet beneath their feet is precisely the shade of cabbage, but whatever floats your boat, Bucky supposes. 

“He’s rich, Bucky,” Steve says, his voice cheerfully dry. “Taste doesn’t matter when you’re rich.”

“Nothing matters when you’re rich,” Bucky grumbles. “Down with the upper class,” he adds, pumping his metal fist in the air.

“Here here,” Steve says dryly, and pushes open the doors. 

The sheer volume of people in the room is almost enough to make Bucky turn on his heel and walk right back out again. If not for Steve’s hand on his—grounding, steadying—he would. 

Steve moves closer to Bucky just as Bucky shrinks down on himself, something that Bucky appreciates greatly: they’re walking through a large metal frame as soon as they step foot through the door, bisecting lasers crossing their skin, and Bucky blinks wildly as a retinal scanner flashes brightly in his eyes. 

“Captain Steven Grant Rogers-Barnes and Sergeant James Buchanan Rogers-Barnes,” says a displaced voice, harsh and mechanical in nature, as they walk out into the room. A few people glance over at them, glasses of champagne catching the light of the chandelier overhead, but nobody approaches. Bucky’s skin is prickling with apprehension anyway. He doesn’t agree with sneak-attack security measures unless he’s the one implementing them. 

“He didn’t have me set that up,” Steve mutters at Bucky’s side, and Bucky glances up at him, the apprehension getting stronger. Steve’s face is carefully placid, but Bucky picks up on the tension hovering at the corner of his jaw and doesn’t like it. 

A stream of people coming in the door behind them push them further into the room, so they go with the flow of the tide, stopping by an empty spot by a wall to get their bearings. 

Immediately Bucky decides that this looks like a legitimately unenjoyable party. People stand together in clumps, awkward, and it’s easy to pick out who’s an employee of Pierce and who is an actual guest: only the guests are smiling with any real enjoyment. Pierce himself is standing in the apex of the biggest of these clumps, flute of champagne in hand, his smile small and slick as he talks down to the audience he’s amassed. 

It’s also clear that they’re woefully underdressed. Damn Steve and his lack of fashion sense. 

“You oughta go say hi,” Bucky says. He doesn’t realize he’s holding onto the edge of Steve’s sleeve in his hand, rolling it back and forth between his fingers, until Steve twists his wrist and suddenly they’re holding hands. 

Steve frowns, turning in towards Bucky to hide his expression from the rest of the room. “I don’t wanna talk to him.”

Bucky laughs. He leans back against the wall and Steve comes a little closer, their hands swinging lightly between them. “I know you don’t,” Bucky says. “Neither do I. But the sooner you let him know we stopped by, the sooner we can leave.”

He sighs, and Bucky smiles at him and cups his cheek for half a second. 

“Fine,” Steve says. His mouth is a twist of a line. He really is uncomfortable being here, having Bucky here. It just solidifies Bucky’s conviction that Pierce is up to something. Now they just need to find out  _ what.  _

“Alright,” Bucky says. He stands up from the wall and he and Steve turn to face the room, both of them automatically scouting out the best route to approach Pierce without coming in contact with anyone else. “Let’s make this fast,” Bucky says. 

Steve nods. “Follow me.”

Pierce stops whatever conversation he’s having the moment he catches sight of Bucky and Steve. The hairs on the back of Bucky’s neck stand up.

“The Mister Rogers-Barnses,” Pierce says; as he steps towards them, the people in his immediate vicinity drift away, obviously recognizing that they’ve been dismissed, and suddenly there’s a clear space a few feet around Bucky and Steve. It leaves them eerily exposed. Bucky slides his hand along Steve’s lower back, feeling for the gun tucked in his waistband; Steve’s hand rests over Bucky’s on his hip, stilling him .

“So glad you could make it,” Pierce continues. He flags down a server, tilting his head at Bucky and Steve, and the man hands them each a flute of champagne. Bucky takes it mechanically. His metal fingers clink against the glass. “Steve is always so eager to get back home to you by the time his work day here is over,” Pierce says, eyes sliding to meet Bucky’s. “I didn’t know if he’d let you out of the house tonight.”

Steve goes so stiff beside Bucky that the space between their arms feels electric with tension. He’s gripping his champagne so tightly that Bucky’s afraid he’ll crack the glass, and his face is fast turning red with anger. 

Bucky steps forward slightly before Steve can lose his mind and break their cover somehow, stretching out a stilling arm in Steve’s direction. He smiles at Pierce, the coldest, flattest thing he can imagine, lifting his chin up and making it clear just how much wider and taller than Pierce he actually is. Even though he feels like he might be sick, he lets his contempt make him threatening in a way he never likes to be. 

“I’m sure you didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” Bucky says slowly, breathing through the disgust. 

“Oh,” Pierce says, eyebrows lifting. His gaze darts between Steve and Bucky, quick and evaluating; he appears surprised. Bucky doesn’t know what the fuck there is to be surprised by. Something like sadistic delight sits in the curve of Pierce’s lips, in the glint of his eye, and it’s unsettling. “I’m sure not,” he says finally, voice light. 

“If you’ll excuse us,” Bucky says. Steve’s hands are in the back of Bucky’s jacket, holding on like he doesn’t know he’s doing it, and his breath is unsteady in Bucky’s ear. His self-restraint in this moment is honestly remarkable; Bucky has seen Steve fly off the handle for a lot less than this. He’s thankful that he’s holding it back tonight. 

“Enjoy the party, gentlemen,” Pierce says, standing still in the same spot he’s been in since they got here, watching them walk away with cool eyes. 

Steve turns, striding through the crowd, heedless of the people shuffling out of his way with wide eyes; Bucky follows, jogging a little to keep up, and he reaches out to grab Steve’s swinging hand as soon as he gets close enough. 

Steves pivots at the touch, turning towards Bucky and circling Bucky’s wrist with his fingers. His face is still red, and his eyes are hard, and if Bucky didn’t trust him completely and consumingly, he might be afraid. 

“I can’t stay here,” Steve says, at the same time that Bucky murmurs, “Let’s break into his office.”

Steve stares at him for a moment, and a measure of that rage melts away from his eyes. He seems to realize that he’s gripping Bucky’s wrist so tightly, because he goes to pull away, but Bucky stops him and laces their fingers together before he can. Slowly, the very corner of Steve’s mouth lifts into a smile. 

“C’mon,” Bucky says. There are people at his back, so he steps closer, looking up to meet Steve’s eyes. “It’ll be fun.”

“I don’t have to break in, you know, I have a key,” Steve says. 

“Well then let’s fucking go.”

Steve kisses him—hard, fast—his fingertips pressing up at Bucky’s chin to get the right angle, and even though it’s done in the space of time it takes Bucky to blink, he’s still a little unsteady on his feet as Steve leads him out of the ballroom. 

The hallways are empty. The mansion stands hauntingly barren, just a maze of rooms and passages; their footsteps are loud on marble and carpet alike, and a frisson of alertness shoots down Bucky’s spine at every step. Even with Steve’s hand in his—with Steve’s determined, sure-footed lead—Bucky still thinks they’ll get caught at any moment. 

Steve turns to the right, taking them up a flight of stairs that’s dim and endless-looking without the lights turned on. They are wider than Steve and Bucky’s whole house, vast and carpeted, and Bucky feels like he’s climbing a mountain as they traverse them. 

“Detour,” Steve says quietly at Bucky’s questioning look, so Bucky follows him, trusting Steve to know where to go. 

They wander down a long hallway. The walls are painted burgundy, gold accents on the trimming, and they seem to press close in this windowless chasm, the ceiling low, the space they have to move around in thin. There are paintings of grim-faced men and women on the walls, staring down with dead-eyed gazes as Steve and Bucky pass through; the hallway is long enough that they pass two more sets of elevator doors before they reach the end. 

The door Steve stops them in front of is tall, painted cream. There’s an intricate lock on the front, heavy looking, made of gold; Steve glances at Bucky, gesturing toward it, and half of his mouth curls up in a smirk. 

“You wanted to break into something,” Steve says. There’s a mischievous light in his eyes. Bucky could kiss him. “Be my guest.”

Bucky grins brashly, sliding a hairpin out of the bun piled on top of his head, and kneels. 

He makes quick work of the lock. Picking locks seems hard, until someone good teaches you how to do it, and then it’s just like any other skill: work at it long enough, and you can do it with ease. Bucky might not like being out on the field, but that doesn’t mean he’s never enjoyed a little bit of fiddly work like this. 

With a click, the lock releases, and the door swings inward. Grinning, Bucky gets to his feet, glancing over his shoulder at Steve; Steve’s watching him with his arms crossed, a little bit of heat in his gaze, a fondness to the tilt of his mouth that makes Bucky’s skin thrum. 

“Good job, honey,” Steve says, mouth rasping close to Bucky’s cheek as he passes him on his way into the room. His hand drags at Bucky’s hipbone, and his breath clouds heat on Bucky’s skin, and Bucky wants to grab Steve and haul him close. But he doesn’t. He curls his hands into fists, and he doesn’t. 

Shutting the door behind them, Bucky leans back against it, squinting through the murky dark of the room as he gets his bearings. “Where are we?” he asks, voice no brighter than the darkness around them. 

Steve is standing just a few feet away from Bucky, head bent as he looks at the row of books on the shelf before him. “Pierce’s bedroom,” he says. “Can’t be in here long.”

Bucky’s stomach drops to the soles of his feet. “Jesus fucking fuck,” he hisses, lurching away from the door, grabbing Steve’s shoulder right before Steve’s fingers come in contact with the book he’s reaching for. Steve glances at him, surprised, and Bucky glares. “Don’t  _ move  _ anything!” Bucky says. “He’ll notice, Steve, you know he will.”

Steve frowns lightly, but he lets Bucky pull him back without much resistance. “I was gonna be careful, Buck,” he says. He’s not pouting, but probably only because they’re on the job right now. If they were at home… In any case, it’s clear that he’s halfway teasing, but hell, Bucky’s heart is still racing. “It’s not my first job, you know.”

Bucky wants to laugh—but just the thought of Pierce finding Steve out is making him dizzy with horror. “I know, Steve,” he says, but he doesn’t let go.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor spoilery warnings: this is where that violence tag comes in. A character is hit until they bleed, verbally and physically threatened, and then kidnapped. Don't read from the final set of asterisk onwards if this isn't your thing. 
> 
> Stay safe<3

They don’t find anything. They don’t find anything. They don’t find anything. 

It’s been a month, and Steve is getting frustrated. 

He goes to work, and Pierce is disgusting, and Steve can’t do anything about it. He comes home, and Bucky is there, and Bucky is lovely, and Bucky is—- 

Steve’s happier in his home life than he’s been in longer than he can even remember, and none of it’s real. Not any of it.

It happens on a Saturday afternoon, when the rain is misting their windows with a dotted film: 

Bucky is curled up on the couch, reading something with a ton of pages, his bottom lip tucked up beneath his teeth in concentration. There’s a shadow across half his cheek from where his hair falls from its loose French braid, but his eyes are smokey and clear as they travel across the page, and they crinkle with amusement at whatever he’s reading. There’s a blanket across his lap as there so often is, because Bucky hates to be cold, and Steve can’t rip his eyes away. 

Steve himself is sitting in the armchair across the room, his sketchbook in his hands. His pencil has been moving across the page absently for the past half hour, and looking down now, he starts a little at what he sees: Bucky, sketched in duplicate—the elegant arch of his wrists, the curve of his eyebrows, the faint divots where his teeth indent rosy skin. 

And  _ oh _ , Steve thinks, looking back and forth between the man on the page and the man in the room as his heart swells with a triple-timed beat.  _ Oh.  _

He loves him. He’s not sure how he didn’t know. 

“...Steve?” Bucky sounds like it isn’t the first time he’s said Steve’s name. He’s smiling gently, a little perplexed, book lowered to his lap; Steve knows he’s staring, but he can’t make himself look away. Bucky’s smiles hit differently with this newfound knowledge Steve has acquired. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah,” Steve breathes. There’s half a laugh in his tone, quivering just this side of hysterical. “Yeah, Buck, I’m fine,” he says, even though he doesn’t really think it’s true. God, he really is an idiot: he’s fallen in love with the one person he can never have, the one person who’s joined Steve in living this complete, SHIELD-manufactured lie. 

Bucky rises out of his seat partway, forehead creased. “You sure?” he asks, pushing his blanket out of the way to get to Steve. 

Steve shuts his sketchbook with a snap, standing and coming over to Bucky before he can disrupt the other man’s position too much. “Yes, I’m sure,” he says quietly, and he just can’t help it: he slides both of his arms around Bucky’s little waist, bears him back into the corner of the couch, his forehead dropping to Bucky’s chest. Bucky holds him immediately. Steve can feel Bucky’s breath in his hair. 

“Ok, doll,” Bucky says, and Steve  _ aches _ at the easy way that endearment rolls off Bucky’s tongue, the word a sharp, stinging slap. Bucky sounds so earnest, even though it’s just the two of them, nobody else around to hear; so sure. 

They don’t move for the longest time. 

***

Bucky bought pumpkins at the farmer’s market on Saturday, three tiny things that sit on the counter until Sunday morning, when Steve comes downstairs to find Bucky mixing up pumpkin in a big glass bowl. There’s a pie crust sitting on the counter, half-full of baking beads, and there’s a smudge of flour on Bucky’s left cheek, a fine dusting of it in his dark hair, and Bucky turns to Steve with a very serious expression and says “I felt like pie.”

“I love pie so much,” Steve says, and he can’t help it anymore, and he crosses the kitchen in three strides and backs Bucky up against the counter, a hand on his hip and a hand in his hair, and kisses him. 

Bucky makes a soft little noise against the pressure of Steve’s mouth, immediately melting into Steve’s hold; Steve feels the sound right in the center of his stomach, and it rests there, fluttering and warm. The wooden spoon in Bucky’s hand drops to the floor with a clatter as his arms twine about Steve’s neck. He feels so good in Steve’s arms, soft and snug, strong and squishy in all the right places, the perfect height for Steve to drop his chin slightly and bite at the seam of Bucky’s lips. 

He groans. Steve uses the hand in Bucky’s hair as leverage, tugging his head back and up so he can get a better angle, a perfect angle, an angle that punches another noise deep out of Bucky’s chest and into the waiting space of Steve’s lips. Steve eats all his tiny, perfect noises up like sugar, aching for more. God, he’s pretty, Steve’s always thought so, even when the hate that ran between them was deeper than a river, but now— 

Steve’s phone rings in his pocket, slicing through this moment they’ve created, slicing through their kiss. Steve pulls away from Bucky and their lips drag together as he does, and Bucky shivers against him, clinging to Steve’s neck, head dropping to Steve’s sternum as Steve takes the call. 

“Yeah?” Steve says, clearing his throat when the word comes out significantly deeper and raspier than it should have. 

“ _ Captain Rogers,”  _ says the caller, and Steve’s spine goes stiff. Bucky feels it, Steve can tell: he lifts his head, his cheeks flushed, his lips swollen red, and looks at Steve in concern. “ _ Thank you for picking up on a Sunday morning.” _

“Sir,” Steve says a little tightly. He still has Bucky pinned back against the counter, pliant in Steve’s grip, so Steve smooths his palm over the back of Bucky’s neck, watching the steady rise of a flush on his round cheeks as his eyes drop closed. 

He shouldn’t have answered his fucking phone. 

“ _ I hate to ask this of you,”  _ Pierce says, sounding like he doesn’t actually hate it at all, “ _ but I need you to come in today. _ ”

No explanations. No apologies. Nothing. 

Steve steps away from Bucky, and he hates the way Bucky’s eyes fly open at the movement, so big and round and full of shock that Steve’s moving away so fast. Steve lets the hand on Bucky’s hip linger for half a second, squeezing gently, soothing, before he backs off completely and turns around to finish the call. 

“Of course, sir,” he says, grateful beyond belief that he doesn’t have to have this talk face-to-face with Pierce, because there’s no way he’d be able to keep his expressions in check. “I’ll be over right away.”

He hears Bucky’s soft hum of disappointment behind him, and it goes straight through him. 

“ _ See you soon,”  _ Pierce says, and Steve disconnects the call without answering. 

“That was Pierce,” Steve says as he turns around. Bucky is right where Steve left him: slumped back against the counter, his hands flexing around invisible things. The spoon is still at his feet. He watches Steve from under the hood of his eyelids. “He wants me to come in.”

Bucky, the edges of him muted in the sunlight that backs him, turning him into a watercolor painting—Bucky tilts his gaze down and to the left, and his thumb comes up to swipe at the soft pink pillow of his lower lip. Steve feels a little like he’s coming undone in the center. “Ok, Steve,” Bucky says. No arguments, no expression to the words. 

For a moment, Steve hovers on the threshold of the kitchen, the line between him and Bucky tugging him back and back and back. But he ignores it. He steps out, away. 

Later, this will be what haunts him. 

***

Pierce is waiting in his office when Steve arrives, his eyes on his computer screen like Steve isn’t even there. 

“Rumlow usually works the weekends,” Pierce says mildly, and Steve  _ knows that _ , Steve  _ drafts the schedule.  _ “But he had to call off, and there’s nobody I trust as much as the two of you.”

This is curious, seeing as Pierce hasn’t seemed particularly partial to Rumlow this whole time, but Steve doesn’t comment. It’s not worth it. It doesn’t matter.

“Sir,” he says, the word more a curse than anything by now, and goes to stand somewhat moodily in the hallway. 

The hours pass like molasses. Steve doesn’t hear from Bucky on the comm at all today, and he feels a little wilt of disappointment at that. Bucky doesn’t talk to him everyday, sure, but it’s always nice when he does. Steve hopes he didn’t make things weird between them. Steve hopes Bucky can’t tell—can’t tell how Steve feels about him. He doesn’t deserve to have to handle Steve’s emotional baggage, doesn’t deserve to have to wade through that drama, especially what it’s definitely not something that would make him happy. 

It’s fine. Steve’ll get over it—maybe, hopefully, someday. They’ll finish this job, and… and they’ll part ways. And it’s not even likely that they’ll see each other very much again, after this, because they never really have before. So Bucky won’t have Steve bothering him, and Steve will have room to nurse a broken heart in all of that aching, lonely quiet that waits for him back in his SHIELD apartment— 

“I’m stepping out for a moment, Captain Rogers, don’t bother to follow,” Pierce says as he breezes past Steve, a thick manilla folder tucked under one arm. He’s thumbing at something on the screen of his phone with his other hand, distracted, and so he doesn’t notice when a sheet of paper flutters out of the folder and to the ground. 

Steve waits, utterly still, until Pierce disappears into the elevator before stooping to pick up the paper. It’s white, but so filled with cramped black type that it looks almost gray in Steve’s grip. Stamped across the top with patchy red ink is the word CLASSIFIED. 

Steve turns away from the angle of Pierce’s camera as he reads it, knowing that he can pass this off as simple curiosity if the paper yields nothing and Pierce catches him at it, and also knowing that it doesn’t matter if Pierce catches him if this is something incriminating, because he’ll be going to jail, anyway. 

A quick scan of the paper makes Steve’s blood freeze in his hands. 

It’s an invoice, it looks like, from a company that Steve doesn’t recognize the name of; a shipment of weapons bigger than even something SHIELD would order at one time, of an assortment that makes Steve’s eyes go dry with how wide they are. But the part that sets Steve’s heart racing, the part that makes his knees weak— 

The order was placed by a HYDRA base in DC. And the signature at the bottom of the paper reads  _ Alexander Pierce _ . 

***

Bucky stands in the kitchen for a long time after Steve leaves, his eyes on the floor, his lips tingling.

It’s just taking some time to get his brain back online, is all. 

Because that kiss—

Well. That’s just not the way fake husbands touch fake husbands, is all, and Bucky is sort of losing his mind. 

Steve calls out “Bye, Buck,” as he leaves the house, but he doesn’t come into the room that Bucky’s in and smile at him like he normally does, and his voice sounds odd. Hesitant. Bucky wants to barrel into the foyer and grab him and slide himself between Steve’s arms and  _ cling _ , so Bucky does nothing at all. 

The door barely makes any noise when it shuts. 

Bucky picks up the spoon and rinses it off before he resumes pie making, but his heart isn’t really in it, his heart is very much otherwise occupied, what the  _ fuck _ , Steve. He can’t stop thinking about the smile on Steve’s face as he’d looked at Bucky across the kitchen, all those straight, even teeth, his beard his hair his  _ face;  _ he can’t stop remembering the feeling of Steve’s fingertips sunk into his hip, the sweet burn of his lips on Bucky’s soft skin as he’d kissed him and kissed him and kissed him. 

He should be happy. He should be smiling, instead of standing here scowling down at the pie filling he’s beating the life out of with a wooden spoon—but that’s impossible. 

Steve is his  _ fake husband.  _ Not real. Not even  _ close _ to real, SHIELD-forged documents notwithstanding, and he never will be, and Bucky is the biggest idiot that’s ever walked this earth. 

Someone knocks on the door and briefly Bucky’s stupid, traitorous heart leaps into beat because maybe it’s Steve, maybe Pierce called and said he didn’t have to come in, after all, maybe Steve just decided to ignore him and came  _ back,  _ maybe maybe maybe—but Steve wouldn’t knock. Steve has a fucking key. 

Bucky’s scowling deeply as he opens the door, he knows this, he accepts it, time to move on. 

That scowl fades as he sees who’s standing there. 

Three men, all nearly as tall and broad as Steve. They’re dressed in black jeans and black t-shirts and black combat boots, all matchy-matchy like an emo boy band, but Bucky can see the poorly-hidden shapes beneath the drape of their black jackets, and Bucky can’t breathe. 

“Gentlemen,” he says, keeping his voice as even as possible, his smile as vapid as he can, and the door opened no more than a sliver. “I believe you’ve got the wrong house.”

The man in the middle is slightly shorter than the other two, but that doesn’t help in any way; he looks meaner somehow, a steel behind his eyes that Bucky wants to edge away from. The slick-backed cut of his dark hair lends him the look of a doberman, poised and ready to bite. He smiles now, and it’s worse than the frowns of the other two by a great amount. 

“No, Barnes,” he says, and drops his arms from their crossed position over his chest, biceps flexing. “I don’t believe we do.”

Bucky is completely unprepared for this. His gun is in the bedroom, his feet are bare, he’s in his fucking pajamas—god, he’s. He’s so stupid. He should have prepared for this, he should have  _ anticipated  _ this, instead of getting lulled into this soft, happy sense of finally belonging somewhere, instead of sinking into the life he’s built with Steve and forgetting that they built it on lies. 

He steps back slowly from the doorway, shutting the door, but the man wedges his foot in the crack, implacable. 

“My name is Brock Rumlow,” he says. “I know you’re husband. You’re gonna let me inside.”

The quiet threat in his voice is unmistakable, and it’s more terrifying than anything else that has happened since these thugs showed up, because this isn’t a threat against Bucky’s life; this is  _ Steve.  _

Bucky could shut the door on them. He could use his bulk to lock it before they pushed in behind them. He’s trained, and he’s strong, and he knows what to do and how to take care of himself. He could buy himself enough time to run upstairs and grab his gun, and he’s strong enough that he could kill these three men in no time with a pull of the trigger and a flick of his wrist—but he won’t. More men would just come, once these men are dead. He knows that he won’t, and, worse, they know that he won’t. Not if Steve’s going to suffer for it. 

He lets them in. 

***

The first punch is always a surprise, even when Bucky expects it. Rumlow’s knuckles slam into his chin and his mouth, reinforced with the steel that plates his thick black gloves, and Bucky tastes the blood that spills into his mouth as he stumbles. 

Steve had kissed him in that same spot, just a few hours ago. 

One of the taller men has Bucky’s arms twisted behind his back, gripping them tightly with both hands so that the metal fused into his shoulder stings and smarts and presses the vibranium reinforcements deep into his spine. He wants to whimper, but he won’t; that’s one thing that he can have. He won’t make a noise through all of this. He won’t give them that. 

“You’re coming with us,” Rumlow says. His smile is gone, replaced with the flat, cold shark-gaze that suits him so much better. He’s wiping his bloody knuckles off on the tight black fabric of his pants, careless. 

“And if I don’t?” Bucky grinds out, grateful for the fact that his voice is steady regardless of the agony his spine and shoulder are in. 

Rumlow looks at him for a moment, silent. He crosses to the hall tree and takes down Steve’s leather jacket and Bucky’s fluffy scarf, and then he pulls Bucky out of the other man’s hold, and dresses him so softly that Bucky wants to hurl on his shoes. He wraps the scarf tightly around Bucky’s neck, making sure to hide the blood dripping down his chin. 

“If you don’t,” Rumlow says, his voice close to Bucky’s ear. “We’ll kill him.”

The two other men flank Rumlow on either side, leaving Bucky free to run if he wants to, and that makes Bucky furious. He will never run. He is not a coward. 

“But you’ll leave him alone if I do,” Bucky asks, and everything he feels is clear in his voice, the ragged edges and the pointless desperation, and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care. He needs to know. “You won’t lay a hand on him?”

Rumlow shrugs. “We’re not gonna hurt your fake husband,” he says. “Not if you get in the goddamn car.”

He doesn’t have a choice, does he?

He gets in the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember: I DID promise a happy ending<3


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *drumroll* HERE WE ARE. THE MOMENT WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR. 
> 
> One more chapter, friends, and then a nice fluffy epilogue to tie everything up! I know I've been posting twice a week, but this next chapter is going to be a doozy to edit and I'm in the middle of midterms, so it might be next Friday before it goes up. We'll see how much self-restraint I have, though. 
> 
> Thanks, once again, for being such fabulous readers. I absolutely adore your commentary, and I can't wait until I have time to answer you all individually<3
> 
> Violence warnings applicable to this chapter, too.

The paper burns a hole in Steve’s pocket through the rest of the day. 

He texts Fury as he’s waiting for Pierce to get back, a coded message in case they’re intercepted, but the meaning is clear—at least to people like them. Fury answers immediately, rare unless there’s an emergency like this one. 

He’s sending a team of agents. Pierce is going down. 

Steve is bursting to tell Bucky on the way home, but at the same time he’s terrified, because this is well and truly it. This is the end. Hell, they probably won’t even spend tonight in their house—the house SHIELD set them up in. 

He’s going to miss everything. The house. The neighbors, people who he actually considers friends. 

And Bucky. God, he’s gonna miss Bucky. 

He doesn’t think he’s even been fully able to process that he won’t just wake up and see him every day, anymore. Every time Steve considers this, his brain goes blank: nothing. White noise. Unfathomable. Terrifying. 

Sam’s in his yard when Steve pulls up, raking leaves into an enormous pile in the center of the yellow lawn, and Steve feels a sad lurch in his gut as they wave to each other; this is likely the last time they’ll do that. 

Steve goes to unlock the door, but he squints down at the handle, confused. It’s already unlocked. That’s extremely unlike Bucky—Bucky, who’s more vigilant than any agent Steve’s ever worked with, only slightly less paranoid than Director Fury himself. 

The hairs on Steve’s arms stand up when he gets inside and sees that Bucky’s scarf and his jacket are missing from the hall tree. Bucky isn’t in the house, and he didn’t lock up. 

When Steve gets to the kitchen, he knows firmly that something is wrong, because the half-finished pie still sits out on the counter, dirty dishes everywhere, food uncovered, and Bucky would absolutely never leave his kitchen in a state like this. 

Steve can’t breathe. 

With fumbling fingers, he calls Bucky’s phone as he tears through the house, running upstairs and searching that spot in the closet where Bucky keeps his gun and—yeah. Yeah, there it is, sitting unused, still fully loaded. Steve slides it into his holster as the call goes to voicemail. 

He runs outside, heart pounding, shouting over to Sam with enough panic that Sam drops his rake and jogs across the lawn to Steve. He’s frowning as he grips Steve’s shoulders. 

“Hey, man, you ok?”

“Sam, did you see Bucky leave?” Steve pants, his voice shaking just as hard as his hands are. Usually he’s so steady, so calm and cool in the face of danger, but this isn’t  _ him _ that he’s terrified for, this is  _ Bucky,  _ and— 

“Yeah,” Sam says. There’s a crease in his forehead, his warm eyes concerned, and Steve tries to settle himself the fuck down, but it isn’t working. “Steve, yeah. He left a few hours ago. Got in a car with a few other guys, I thought they were friends, I… you need to breathe, Steve.”

Steve shakes him off, pressing a hand flat to his own chest as he forces himself to take Sam’s advice. It’s hard. His chest feels like it’s cracking open. “Which direction did they head in?” he asks—not like it’ll matter. He knows that whoever has Bucky is affiliated with Pierce in some way—god, probably HYDRA—and they’ll know how to cover their tracks. He just. He just— 

“That way.” Sam points down the street to the right. “Steve, what’s wrong? What can we do?”

But Steve is backing away, shaking his head, even as he pulls out his phone and unlocks his car with fumbling fingers. “Nothing, Sam. Thank you, and I’m sorry.”

He peels out of the driveway, leaving Sam gaping after him, and he can’t even calm down enough to feel any guilt about it. 

Fury picks up after the third ring, and Steve steamrolls over his greeting. “They have Bucky,” Steve says, his words fast and breathless. He takes a turn way too sharply, and he remembers that night that seems so long ago, when he’d been driving badly just to make Bucky laugh. He’d been proud of himself for that one. “They have him and I think they know where he is so I’m headed there right now but Fury, I need you to check the tracker that’s sewn into my jacket collar and tell me for sure, because they’ve had him for hours and they could be—they could be doing anything to him—”

“ _ Rogers, _ ” Fury barks, cutting him off. Oddly, the gruffness to his voice grounds Steve, settles him a little. He’s used to that tone. That tone means business, means getting shit done. “Start from the beginning, and go  _ slow.” _

Steve does. Fury listens without interrupting, and when Steve is done, his voice is grave. 

“I have the tracker pulled up,” he says. “It’s stalled out at the Pierce Plant twenty miles from where you are.”

Steve’s stomach sinks, even though he knew this somehow, deep in his bones. He thinks of Pierce’s eery speeches, thinks of the room he’d refused to show Steve when he’d brought him there. He thinks of Bucky, soft and beautiful, looking at Steve with trust in his eyes, and he bites back on the scream that wants to battle its way out of his throat. 

“I’m headed there right now,” Steve says. He’s shocked at how his voice sounds: hollow, and determined, and absolutely ripped to shreds. He sounds like he’d do anything, in this moment. And it’s true. 

“I’m sending another team to you,” Fury says. In the background of the call, Steve can hear him barking orders at someone, the words “ _ Barnes, _ ” and “ _ captured, _ ” and Steve’s pulse is so high that the edges of his vision throb dimly gray. “They’ll arrive a few minutes after you do. Do not fucking do  _ anything _ until they get there, you hear?”

Steve doesn’t agree to that. There’s no way Steve is going to agree with that. 

“Hurry,” Steve says, and he hangs up the call. 

***

Steve is—somehow, by the grace of whatever higher power there is—still in Pierce’s security system. He barely waits for the gates in front of the plant to swing open before he’s skidding his car inside, and he doesn’t bother with the parking lot. He throws on the breaks in the middle of the asphalt and jumps out of the car, thankful that he’s still wearing his tac gear from work earlier as he pulls the glock out of his hip holster and cocks it. 

He still remembers the route Pierce led him on, and he makes quick work of scaling the metal steps the lead to that room, positive that that’s where Bucky’s being held. It’s obvious, it’s on the nose, but that seems to be Pierce’s style: he’s cocky enough to think he can fuck with people, can dangle clues right in front of their faces, and just get away with it. Maybe he can. Maybe Steve should have picked up on it faster. 

But there’s no time for guilty thoughts right now. There’s no time for anything but Bucky. 

Steve’s cell is going off wildly in his pocket, ringing over and over again the closer he gets to the top, and he’s sure it’s Fury—but he ignores it. 

The metal beneath his feet begins to shake as helicopters swarm overhead. The SHIELD emblem is emblazoned upon their sides, so Steve doesn’t bother to hide; they’ll see him, and they’ll join him, and he’ll get Bucky out. 

This has to work. Because he doesn’t know what he’s going to do if it doesn’t. 

Probably, Steve thinks as he slams his shoulder into the door to loosen its hinges, this is exactly the kind of thing Bucky was talking about when he said Steve was reckless and thoughtless and impulsive. He reels back and aims a kick at the metal, ignoring the way his shoulder throbs with pain, ignoring the dull throb in his foot where it connected with the door frame, ignoring the raised voices on the other side, focusing on the dented metal as he kicks and kicks again. 

Steve throws himself once more into the door and it finally gives way, clattering to the floor with a ringing crash that he barely hears as seven pairs of eyes swivel to focus on him. 

Steve draws his gun. Aims it with hands that barely shake. Finds his focus immediately. 

Bucky is in the middle of the room, strapped to a chair that looks like something out of a horror novel, all hunking metal parts and tight leather straps that dig into his pale skin, and he strains toward Steve as soon as their eyes meet, a pained noise falling from his lips at the movement. He sinks back into the chair, breathing harsh, and before Steve can do anything Pierce steps out of the shadows to the right of the chair and slaps Bucky hard across the face. 

Steve sees red. 

Pierce pulls a gun from somewhere and aims it at Steve, but Steve shoots Pierce in the leg before he can even think, lifting the gun and blowing a hole in his shin in one swift movement. Pierce goes down with a cry, dropping like a puppet whose strings have been cut, and none of the people surrounding him make a move to ease his fall; instead, they all stand perfectly still, all eyes on Steve and the man who is a crumpled, bloody heap on the floor. 

“Rogers,” says Pierce. There’s a groan in his voice, one that trails off into a high, reedy whine at the end of that word. He’s clutching his leg, and blood pours through the cracks between his pressure-white fingers. 

“Pierce,” says Steve. Gun still lifted. Aimed right between Pierce’s eyes. He doesn’t want to pull the trigger, but— 

“I think—” Pierce coughs as he tries to lift himself up, falls back on one elbow, groans. HE looks impossibly old. “You’re—overreacting.”

Behind Pierce, Bucky sits in his chair, his feet planted evenly on the ground, his gaze steady, steady, steady on Steve. He looks pale and he looks tired, but he does not look afraid. He looks like he made his decision, and he stands by it. 

Steve doesn’t know why, but he does know this: Bucky was going to die for… for something. Someone. 

Bucky is not afraid. That’s important. 

Steve is terrified.

“We can settle this,” Pierce says. He’s fading fast. Not in danger of death—not if he has medical attention soon, that is—but obviously in immense pain.  _ Good.  _ “We’ll agree not to hurt you—”

“Did you hurt him?” Steve asks. Steadies his firing hand with the other, keeps his breathing even and slow. Hopes his voice is calm. Helicopters rumble overhead. 

“Captain—”

“Steve.”

Bucky’s voice is low, urgent. He hadn’t meant to speak: Steve can see that in the wide set of his bruised eyes. There is blood on his mouth, and Steve wants to—to— 

“Shut up,” says one of Pierce’s thugs—Rumlow, maybe, but it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter because—and Steve fires his gun into the plaster wall above the man’s head, with a noise that echoes painfully. 

The bullet sticks, a tangible warning. 

Bucky strains against his restraints. 

The eyes stare. 

“I don’t wanna shoot you,” Steve says, and his voice does shake now, tattered and shock-broken, “but I will.”

A sigh, from Pierce. Or maybe just a gasp. He nods his head at Steve. 

“Stop him.”

The room erupts into chaos. 

Some of them have knives, some have guns: Steve finds himself dodging both, swinging punches and kicking at faces, one thought pounding through his mind:  _ Bucky. Bucky. Get to Bucky.  _

Steve fights on autopilot: it’s easy for his body and his weapon to sync up like this, effortless, when he has such a driving end goal in mind. He moves like he’s dreaming, like waking up is what he’ll get at the end of this instead of Bucky, Bucky, his Bucky, strong and beautiful even as he bleeds, tied to that chair and ready to sacrifice himself—for what? For the mission? For… for Steve? 

He hears him, when there are only two men left; his voice, fluttering and ragged with pain and panic. “Steve, behind you—” he gets out, but just as Steve turns to intercept the knife that’s being swung in a wide arc at his head, the rest of the SHIELD agents pour through the door behind him. 

The fight is over an about three seconds. 

Steve trips over his own feet as he goes to Bucky, he trips over Pierce, still writhing on the floor; he drops his gun and the knife he’d somehow ended up with, throws them to the ground as he reaches Bucky. “Bucky,” he gasps, careless of anyone else around them, his heart throbbing like a bruise. His hands are on Bucky’s face, feather-light on his cheeks, as he tilts his head very carefully from side to side on the search for injuries. He doesn’t have to look very far: Bucky’s lips are bloody and split, blood running down his chin, and his left eye is swelling shut, a nasty yellow-green bruise coming out over his skin. Steve wants to kill every last person that laid a hand on Bucky, but he wants to take care of Bucky more. “God, Bucky, honey I was so fucking worried.”

Bucky’s bruised mouth parts and he takes a breath like he’s going to say something, but then his eyes go wide like it’s only just now hit him what he’s been through, and the breath turns into a choked-off sob halfway out of his chest. He starts to shake in Steve’s hands, light, deep tremors that rock him like the last leaf on a winter branch. 

“Shh,” Steve soothes, and he cups the back of Bucky’s neck with one big hand, dusting kisses over the parts of his face that aren’t beaten and battered. “I’m gonna get you out of here, ok honey? Gonna get you home and take care of you. You can let yourself be scared now, if you want to be, because I’ve got you.”

Bucky, eyes pressed closed, nods, but he’s still trembling, trembling like he can’t stop. Steve kisses him again, so so light, and gets a little taste of the terror-sweat that rests like a film over Bucky’s skin. 

Steve is gentle as he gets Bucky out of the chair, another flare of anger igniting when he sees the scraped-raw skin of Bucky’s wrists, red and tender. He circles above that spot with his thumb and forefinger and Bucky clings to him once he’s free, both hands gripping the collar of Steve’s uniform. Steve breathes out and touches their foreheads together, and then he helps Bucky stand. 

“Agent Barnes,” says Fury from behind Steve, voice as clipped as it always is. Steve slides an arm around Bucky’s waist as they turn to face him; Bucky leans against Steve, his head propped on Steve’s shoulder, his breath dangerously fast. Fury crosses his arms as he looks at them, expression inscrutable. “Go back to the house,” he says finally. “Just for tonight. I expect a full debrief from both of you tomorrow afternoon.”

Bucky nods, the movement obvious where his head rests against him, but he doesn’t speak; Steve’s not sure if he can. Bucky’s as tense as a board in Steve’s arms, almost dangerously so, and if he doesn’t stop shaking soon Steve is going to pick him up and carry him home, regardless of what anyone says. 

“I trust you to determine the level of medical attention needed?” Fury says to Steve as Steve starts moving him and Bucky through the mess of people and weapons and blood and to the door. Steve wants to arch an eyebrow at him, but he’s hesitant to risk anything that might get Bucky taken away from him, so he just tamps down his confusion about the break of protocol and nods. 

“Good,” Fury says, and then he turns away. 

Once they’re out the door and on the landing of the steps, Steve turns to face Bucky, making sure to hold onto him just in case. He cups the side of Bucky’s face carefully, thumb brushing the puffy skin beneath his eye. “Can you walk?” Steve asks him softly. “I’ll carry you if you can’t.”

He says it with a quirk of his lips, but it’s not fully a joke, and he thinks Bucky knows that. Steve’d carry him anywhere, if only he’d ask. 

“I can walk,” Bucky says, fingers gentle as they run over Steve’s arm. Steve believes him; now that they’re out here, the carnage behind them, and Bucky is a little bit steadier on his feet, Steve can see that there probably isn’t anything wrong with him worse than a few bruised ribs and mild shock. 

That doesn’t mean Steve wouldn’t head back in that room and burn them all to the ground if Bucky so much as hinted that he wanted him to. 

Steve kisses him again, on the forehead this time, letting his lips linger. Bucky curves into him. “Ok, Buck,” he murmurs. “You tell me if you need anything.”

***

Steve helps him down the steps and into the car—parked in the middle of the pavement like he’d been in a hurry—and he doesn’t stop touching Bucky the whole time. 

Bucky is grateful. He’s more grateful than Steve can possibly know: that he came, that he got Bucky out, but more than anything that Steve is alright. He’d been so worried that whole time, even as they hit him and hurt him, that they’d go back on their promise and hurt Steve, too. He doesn’t think he’s ever been more terrified. 

When Steve reaches for Bucky’s seatbelt, Bucky finally laughs softly at him, placing a stilling hand on Steve’s forearm. “Stevie,” Bucky says. His voice sounds like someone’s taken a cheese grater to it, rough and thin with exhaustion; Steve is looking at him with so very much in his eyes that Bucky can’t breathe with it. It’s half the reason that he can’t seem to stop quivering. “Get in the car, sweetheart. I’m ok.”

“Ok,” Steve says, sounding so small that Bucky can’t help it: he curls his fingers in Steve’s collar and pulls him in, kissing him quietly even though his mouth is bloody and bruised. 

It’s more of a reassurance than anything: I’m here, I’m ok, I’m alive. Steve hums into it, and Bucky remembers their kiss this morning, and god, that seems like years ago. 

“Ok,” Steve says again, breathless as he pulls back, and he shuts Bucky’s door and climbs in the other side. 

***

“Pierce is HYDRA,” Bucky says as soon as they’re on the road, his head leaned back against the carseat. He feels like he hasn’t slept in years: every inch of his body aches, and his mind is throbbing with leftover panic. His brain had fought him the whole time he was in that chair, having him halfway convinced that he was back in that cell in Afghanistan with every blow that he took. But there isn’t time to think about that now. They are still, technically, on a job, and this needs to be said. “He told me while they were trying to… to get information out of me. He knows we’re SHIELD somehow.”

He doesn’t add that Pierce had only told these things because he’s pretty sure they were planning on killing him. Steve doesn’t need to know that—and honestly, he probably already does. It’s not a difficult conclusion to reach. 

“I know,” Steve says, quiet, and Bucky looks at him in surprise. He’s white-knuckled as he grips the steering wheel, staring straight ahead. “I found out today. He dropped a paper in front of me, an invoice for a weapons order to a HYDRA facility in DC. Now that I think about it, this whole day was probably a set-up; get me to come to work so you’re home alone, drop a clue in front of me just to torture me. He must have known I’d come after you.” His voice goes dark. “He was gonna shoot me. Good thing I shot him first.”

It’s a stupid, reckless plan on Pierce’s part—just stupid and reckless enough that it could have worked, if not for Steve’s quick draw. 

Pierce found what he could use to manipulate Steve and Bucky to his will with: each other. 

***

Steve is waiting outside the bathroom door when Bucky finishes showering, pacing the leftover nervous energy out, his brow creased. 

He looks up when he hears Bucky’s step, and he melts, coming forward with careful hands extended to touch the hem of Bucky’s sweatshirt. “Can I check your ribs?” Steve asks, quiet, like speaking at a normal volume is gonna break Bucky in half. 

Bucky nods, throat dry. He’s so tired, and he knows himself well enough to realize that he’s probably still in shock, at least a little bit. He just wants to crawl into bed and use Steve as a blanket. 

But Steve lifts them hem of Bucky’s sweatshirt gently, rolling it out of the way, and he slides his palm along the bruised flesh of Bucky’s rib cage, and Bucky shivers. 

“Sorry,” Steve says, stepping back immediately and letting the shirt fall. His face is red and he looks guilty, and Bucky can’t find the words to tell him that that reaction hadn’t been from pain. Not physical pain, anyway. “I think you’re just bruised.”

Bucky nods again. Horrifyingly, he feels like he might cry. He rubs a hand over his heavy eyes, taking care not to press too hard on his wounds, and takes a deep, shuddering breath. 

“C’mon,” Steve says, plying Bucky with a little smile, a soft touch to his temple as Steve tucks back Bucky’s wet hair. “Let’s go get some food in you.”

“Wanna go to bed,” Bucky mumbles, but he lets Steve pull him forward with barely any coaxing at all, because more than anything, he just wants to be near Steve. 

The thought just keeps running through his head, unrelenting: he almost lost Steve today. He almost lost him. 

And he’s going to lost him in an entirely different way tomorrow. 

“I know, honey,” Steve says as the walk down the creaky steps, and god, why does he insist on calling Bucky that, saying such sweet things? It kills Bucky every time, a bullet through his gut. He almost wishes he could still find it within himself to hate Steve. Almost. “Eat something, and then we’ll go to bed.”

The things for Bucky’s pie are still out on the counter. He’s more upset than he should be over that. 

There’s a knock on the door when Bucky’s halfway through his sandwich, and both Steve and Bucky jump, their eyes meeting over the counter. Steve’s are wide and ice-blue, blind panic around the irises before he shakes his head a little and stands. 

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he says, making like he’s going to the door on his  _ own,  _ and Bucky leaps to his feet and grabs Steve’s arm before he gets two steps away, glaring at him. Weirdly, this makes Steve smile. Idiot, Bucky thinks fondly. 

They approach the door with more caution than Steve has probably used in his whole life, Steve’s hand on the gun at his hip, their footsteps quiet as the night. They peak out the living room window first—

“Natasha,” Steve breathes. “Just Natasha.”

Bucky doesn’t feel like being the object of Natasha’s all-knowing stare tonight, but he will admit that it’s better than being kidnapped by HYDRA agents again. They let her in. 

Her eyes seek Bucky out immediately, real concern in their depths. “Sam told me something was wrong,” she says in lieu of a greeting. Her small form is tense, ready for action, and Bucky thinks briefly that she’d make a very good agent. “Are you two alright?”

They don’t have a cover story, nothing to tell the neighbors. He and Steve collectively have about two brain cells between them, Bucky thinks despairingly. 

“Bucky ran into some trouble,” Steve says, and Bucky almost rolls his eyes, because seriously? That’s the story we’re going with, Steven? But Steve’s stepping a little in front of Bucky like he thinks it’ll help somehow, obviously wanting Nat to leave even though they are, ostensibly, friends, and Bucky can feel Steve cringing back from her through the places where their arms are pressed together. 

Natasha looks at them. She is flatly unimpressed: she chews on the inside of her cheek like she’s deciding something, eyes flicking over them sharply, and Bucky feels like a bug under a microscope. 

“I know you’re not really married,” she says finally, and all of Bucky’s blood runs cold. 

“What—huh?” Steve says weakly. 

Natahsha’s smile flickers across her face, surprisingly warm for its brevity. “I don’t know what’s going on with you two, and I don’t  _ want _ to know. But I know you aren’t really married, and I know you probably aren’t really who you say you are, and that’s ok. I still care about you. You’re my friends.” She shrugs. “So don’t trip over yourself to explain anything. I just want to make sure you’re ok, and I know everybody else wants that, too.”

“Nat,” Steve says, obviously emotional, and Bucky’s touched too, sure, but he’s focusing on the other part of that little speech. 

“ _ Everyone  _ knows we aren’t married?” He demands, eyes wide. Jesus, this is embarrassing. Are they seriously that bad at their jobs?

This time Natasha’s grin sticks. “Well, they suspect it. It took them a while to come ‘round to my way of thinking, but I got them in the end. You two definitely didn’t seem married in the beginning, and by the time you finally started to, we didn’t believe you in the first place.”

“Jesus,” Bucky groans. He drops his forehead against Steve’s shoulder, eyes closed in embarrassment. Eight years in this line of work, and they’ve never been found out; now, every goddamn person they’ve interacted with on this job has revealed they never believed them at all. 

Steve’s arm goes around him, even though they don’t need to pretend any more, even though the jig is up. Bucky doesn’t comment, and neither does Nat, and Bucky is unspeakably grateful. 

“So anyway.” Natasha says it like they’ve been discussing the weather for the past five minutes, and not Steve and Bucky’s total inability to do their jobs correctly. “I’m glad you’re alright, Bucky, Steve. See you around.”

The thing is, she might  _ not _ see them around. But when Bucky hugs her, and feels her hug him back just a little tighter than usual, he thinks she probably knows that, too. 

***

Finally, finally, they go to bed. 

Bucky gets under the covers, and Steve crawls in immediately beside him. He is terribly gentle in wrapping his arms around Bucky, mindful of the bruised spots on his ribs, the lacerations around his wrists, the mess of his face—enough so that Bucky wants to grab him and yank him close, pull him in, not let him go. 

“‘M not gonna break, Stevie,” Bucky murmurs as his eyes drift closed. Now that he’s finally horizontal, he can barely keep himself awake; he’s drifting in and out of sleep even as he speaks, his body aching and exhausted, his mind just as beaten as the rest of him. He knows he won’t sleep well tonight—he keeps getting assaulted by waves of leftover panic, and they’re guaranteed to fuck with his sleep—but he wants to get in whatever he can. 

Steve doesn’t answer. Bucky turns his head and forces his heavy eyes open to look at him, concerned. 

Steve is staring back at Bucky, and he looks like he had when he found Bucky in that chair: devastated. Like he’s going to burn something down. 

“Steve,” Bucky rasps, turning on his side even though it hurts. He takes one of Steve’s hands in his, brings it up to rest between their chests. His heart is beating so fast that it’s all he can hear. “Sweetheart.”

“Sorry,” Steve says, gruff to hide the way his voice cracks. He blinks rapidly, like there’s something in his eye, like—like he’s going to cry. “I’m sorry I left you alone. I’m sorry I didn’t  _ realize.” _

“ _ Steve _ ,” Bucky says, and he’s as sure of himself as he’s ever been when he says, “this is  _ not _ your fault. In no way is this your fault.”

Steve frowns. His blue eyes are definitely wet, moisture clinging to his bottom lashes, and  _ oh.  _ “But I still could have—” 

“They told me if I didn’t come with them, they’d kill you,” Bucky says. 

Steve stares at him. Bucky’s heart is racing, racing, pushing its way out of his chest; he wasn’t going to tell Steve this, he wasn’t going to reveal this because of all that it means, but he suddenly knows in the bottom of his soul that he can’t keep this secret any longer. That it’s  _ wrong _ to keep this secret any longer. 

“I could’ve stopped them, Stevie,” he continues, and his voice might be nothing more than a thready whisper in his throat, but he means this more than he’s ever meant anything. “I could’ve shot them all dead where they stood. But they told me if I didn’t come they’d kill you, and I knew if I got rid of them, some other member of HYDRA would just take their place.” He stops, touching the soft slope of Steve’s cheek one last time before he finishes—before he says the thing that will ruin them forever—and he closes his eyes so that he can’t see Steve’s reaction. He doesn’t want to face that pity. “The truth is,” he whispers, and his breath catches, but he pushes through. “The truth is, I’d rather they’d gotten me and tortured me ‘til I died than kill you, and that’s all there is to it. So no. It’s not your fault, you beautiful, awful man; it’s me.”

Steve doesn’t speak, and Bucky doesn’t ask him to. Steve’s cheek is hot beneath Bucky’s palm. 

Bucky isn’t going to apologize. He hasn’t done anything worth apologizing for—the only person he’s hurting is himself. Loving Steve isn’t going to have any effect on Steve whatsoever. 

But then— 

But then, “Bucky,” Steve murmurs, and there’s barely any voice to the word, nothing but air, whispering across the sheets between them, “Bucky. What are you saying, honey?”

Bucky tries to laugh, but it comes out on a sob instead. He opens his eyes, looks directly at Steve, and Steve’s irises are big and blue and glittering, and he chokes on the words but he says them anyway, he says, “I’m in love with you, _ asshole _ .”

And Steve doesn’t look at him with pity. Steve doesn’t shove him away, or frown, or even let him down gently: Steve surges forward and he takes Bucky’s face in his hands and he kisses him, he kisses him and kisses him and kisses him, on the forehead and the cheek and the unbruised corner of his mouth, kisses him until Bucky really is crying, breathless with it. 

“God,” Steve says, like the word is being punched out of him. There’s that line between his eyebrows, but it isn’t annoyance, or anger, or concern: it’s pure concentration, all of his attention zeroed in on Bucky like he’s the only thing important to exist in the world. Steve kisses Bucky’s eyelids, and he’s so gentle that Bucky thinks he might die anyway, here in this bed, die from all of this  _ feeling _ that’s building up behind his chest like an avalanche. 

Steve wipes the tears away from Bucky’s eyes, infinitely careful, infinitely kind. His lips are so soft on Bucky’s skin, like a fever-dream that he’ll wake up from as soon as he’s cold again. 

“I love you,” Steve says. He’s smiling with every inch of his body, and he’s beautiful, and Bucky is staring straight into the sun but he doesn’t care. “I’m in love with you. Oh, baby, don’t cry.”

He pulls Bucky in with a hand at the back of his neck and Bucky doesn’t resist him; he buries his face against Steve, feeling the rasp of Steve’s beard against his skin as he kisses Bucky’s forehead again. 

Bucky can’t believe this is happening to him. “I don’t believe it,” he says quietly, not really meaning to speak out loud, but choosing not to take the words back once he’s said them. It’s true. Steve is perfect, Steve is wonderful, and he loves  _ Bucky _ ? Bucky, who can’t go out in the field, Bucky, who wakes up screaming every other night— 

“Hey,” Steve says quietly, pulling back to look at Bucky. He’s serious, but there’s still a smile lurking in the corners of his mouth, and Bucky prays that that will never go away. “Guess I just gotta make you believe it, huh, Barnes?”

And Bucky doesn’t know what their future holds. Bucky doesn’t know how they’ll make this work, or if they even can. But he knows damn well the they’re gonna try. 

“Guess so, Rogers,” he says, and smiles. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooo! Ooo! Ooo! I almost forgot! Two things: 
> 
> 1\. Ever wanted to rope me into a binding contract that absolutely ensures I write what you want me to write? Or something slightly less intense? Want a sequel to The Tipping Point? Want me to write a Titanic AU? Or literally almost anything else? Well now's your chance! For the low price of a donation to the charity of your choice, you can [bid on me](https://www.marveltrumpshate.com/auction-tag/unicornpoe-/) in the Marvel Trumps Hate auction! Bidding closes on the 26th :D
> 
> 2\. I [posted my Captain America Big Bang fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21154286/chapters/50348381#workskin) , and it's accompanied by some truly GORGEOUS art! Check it out<3


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOSH HI
> 
> It's been a while! Thanks for sticking around, pals. I did nanowrimo and it consumed me, and then suddenly it was finals week, and it's technically still finals week but a girl has got to have break from studying sometimes, right? Right. Enjoy!

Steve wakes up alone. 

Empty bed. The blankets smooth, still a little warm. A dent in the pillow next to Steve, a place where Bucky’s head should be. 

Bucky— 

Steve is up and out of the room in seconds flat, his heart pounding a panicked staccato at the base of his throat that is fast enough for him to choke on. The floor is cold beneath his feet, but he doesn’t notice it; Bucky is  _ gone,  _ and the last time Bucky was gone he was hurt, hurt, so very hurt, and Steve barely got to him in time then and he’s trying to call Bucky’s name but his voice is a dry-sharp rasp— 

Bucky comes out of the kitchen right when Steve reaches the base of the stairs. Steve has been running, and he doesn’t bother to stop himself, just slows enough that he won’t hurt Bucky when he collides with him and pulls him to his chest and doesn’t let go. 

“Stevie,” Bucky says, and lets Steve hold him as tightly as he obviously needs to. Steve wills his racing pulse into something a little closer to normalcy, but it doesn’t listen. He tucks his nose into that soft, sweet place between Bucky’s shoulder and the curve of his jaw, and he breathes in deep, shaky-deep. “Sweetheart, what…” 

Steve says “Sorry, sorry,” on a breath, but doesn’t let go. “You were gone, I, you, you were gone…”

Bucky is quiet. He trails a hand up the length of Steve’s spine and then back down again, slowly, like he’s gathering up all of Steve’s splintered-off pieces with a caring hand and gently nudging him back together again. Steve dearly hopes that his own inconveniently large body isn’t pressing into any of Bucky’s bruised places. Isn’t making Bucky hurt  _ more.  _

He would pull back, just in case, but. But he can’t make himself step away. 

“I’m ok,” Bucky says eventually. Voice as soft as dawn. Steve can feel it resonating in the spaces between them, and he presses himself closer. “I’m ok. I’m sorry for scaring you. I got up to make breakfast because I—well. You took care of me all day yesterday.”

Steve wants to protest, and Bucky must feel that in the shift of his muscles somehow, must feel how his shoulders stiffen and how his heart quickens again because that isn’t  _ true— _ Bucky presses a kiss to Steve’s cheek. Doesn’t pull his mouth away, lets his breath gather there on Steve’s cheek as he speaks, a warmclosesweet cloud. “You  _ did, _ ” he says. God, he smells good. Like soft and quiet things. Like morning air. Steve wants to sink into him, or maybe the other way ‘round, he wants them to meld together until neither of them could get away if they tried. “And I am  _ fine.  _ You didn’t lose me.”

_ You didn’t lose me.  _

“You,” Steve starts, and then has to stop, voice dying halfway out of his throat, weighed down by the force of…  _ this.  _ He lifts his face and looks Bucky in the eye. Bucky looks steadily back, and Steve takes a deep breath. “You always know just what to say. To me. To help me. How?”

Bucky’s soothing hand glides up over Steve’s scapula, curves around one t-shirt-clad shoulder. It’s his metal hand. The fingers are flesh-warm, even through fabric, as much a part of Bucky as anything else. Steve loves him. Steve loves him. Steve loves him with his whole damn heart. 

“Easy,” says Bucky. He pokes Steve in the chest, tenderly playful, and the gesture melts into something a little softer, a little lingering. His eyes are so pretty. He’s so pretty. “I love you, Steve.”

And he said it before, he said it last night, curled up in Steve’s bed and in Steve’s arms, his face wet with tears—but things are different now, in the revealing light of day. Things are different. 

There had been that fear, lingering jackrabbit fast behind Steve’s chest, that maybe morning would shed its light on something else. 

Apparently not. He feels like his whole body is slowly melting from the inside out. In the  _ best  _ way possible. 

Bucky’s eyes widen in delight. “_Oh,_” he breathes, and touches Steve’s cheek with the pads of his fingers, right in that place he just kissed. His face is splitting with a smile. “Oh, you go all pink when I say that, doll.”

Steve can feel the way he’s blushing. 

Steve doesn’t care. 

He sways forward just a bit, tips his head down. Lets his eyes flutter closed as he brushes a kiss over Bucky’s upturned mouth. 

He feels those lips spread wide beneath his own. 

Bucky’s grip tightens on Steve fractionally when Steve pulls away and that little movement goes through Steve like a bullet. Bucky wants him. Bucky  _ loves  _ him. 

“I love you too,” murmurs Steve, cupping Bucky’s jaw carefully in his palm, brushing his thumb in the scruff-shadowed divot of Bucky’s chin. Right beneath those bruised lips. Every part of Steve is caught up in a simultaneous war of wanting to surge forward and consume him and wanting to treat him like something infinitely precious at once. Both. Steve just… wants him. 

“Kiss me again,” Bucky says, the corners of his eyes wrinkling as he smiles, and turns his face so that his lips brush the soft part of Steve’s palm. 

The touch tingles. Steve’s hand is big enough that his fingertips can trail through the silky-fine hairs at Bucky’s temple as he cradles Bucky’s face, and it is almost a sensation overload: all of the various soft and precious parts of him, nestled safe in Steve’s palm.  _ Kiss me, _ Bucky had said, and doesn’t even have to think twice about that; he says, “Ok, Buck,” as quiet as he dares, and then he steps forward, and he doesn’t step away for a long time. 

***

Steve can’t stop touching him. A hand on his arm as Bucky’s plating up their breakfast—turns out that’s what he was doing so early this morning, and Steve feels properly embarrassed about the way he acted for two seconds until Bucky smiles at him again and the thought drifts easily from his mind—squeezing his hip lightly as they weave around each other getting things ready, winding their feet together beneath the table as the eat. 

He’s allowed to do this now. He’s allowed to touch Bucky whenever he wants, as long as Bucky wants that too. 

It is very evident that Bucky wants that too. 

They eat quietly, not many words passing between them. Now that the panic of this morning is over, the reality of what lies ahead of them today is clear to Steve: they have to go back go SHIELD headquarters. They have to meet with Fury individually, give their own debriefs on the mission, fill out more paperwork than Steve can even contemplate—especially after the events of yesterday. 

Their stuff here will be packed up. Waiting for them in their respective apartments by the time they’re done. 

This isn’t their house. This isn’t their life. 

Steve doesn’t want to go back. 

It isn’t just that honeymoon stage of finding out the person you love loves you back, Steve thinks, staring out their kitchen window at the pale lavender-dawn sky beyond. It isn’t just that he wants to hole himself away in this little fantasy he and Bucky have created for themselves and play house, although he cannot deny that that’s a part of it. 

It’s that he is  _ happy.  _ For the first time since before Sarah Rogers died, since before Steve joined the Army and irrevocably changed the course of his own young life forever, Steve is truly happy. Truly happy without feeling guilty about it. 

He has done enough. He knows he has. He has done everything asked of him since he was eighteen years old; everything the government told him to do, every step of the way. He has saved lives—that is the one thing he is truly proud of—and he knows himself well enough to understand that whatever the next step he takes is, it will have to be something that fulfills that part of himself in the same way, but… 

But he’s happy now. He wants to stop. 

He doesn’t want to go back. 

“Stevie,” says Bucky quietly, drawing Steve’s gaze to him with the tone of his voice. His eyes are wide in that frazzled way he gets sometimes, like he’s frayed around the edges, but there is certainty there, too. Lingering in the set of his mouth. His hand is steady when he grips Steve’s fingers. “I’ve been thinking.”   
Steve turns to face him, heedless of the time slipping past them as they sit here. This is something that deserves all of the time in the world. Fury can fucking wait. 

Steve doesn’t say anything. Lets Bucky think, his eyes fixed on the peaked shadows Bucky’s eyelashes make on his skin. 

“About what you said.” Bucky continues like he hadn’t paused. “About… being happy. About how I  _ can  _ be.” 

“Oh yeah?” Steve doesn’t know what to say. The moment feels fraught, feels like it hangs on a thread if terrifyingly delicate proportions. This is a decision that nobody but Bucky Barnes can make for himself. Steve is going to offer whatever support he needs to, because he knows it isn’t an easy one. 

“Yeah,” Bucky says, and he laughs a little, and Steve feels a bit of tension slip away from his shoulders in relief. Piece by piece. Bit by bit. “You were right—don’t gloat—you were right. I’m  _ not  _ happy doing this. I mean, I knew that already, but you were… You helped me see that it’s ok for me to want to do something that doesn’t make me miserable. You helped me see that maybe I  _ do  _ deserve to be happy, just like anybody else does.”

“You  _ do,”  _ Steve says, forgetting anything about keeping quiet. He’s holding both of Bucky’s hands in his own, the metal one and the flesh one, squeezing them gently between the slip of space between their knees, and there is the ghost of a smile on Bucky’s lips. “So, so much you do. You—”

“This was my last mission,” Bucky says. Even he looks a bit surprised at his outburst; Steve is so proud of him that he could cry. “Wow. Yes. I mean it. I’m going to tell Fury today. I don’t want to work for SHIELD any longer.”

“Me neither,” says Steve. It’s terrifying to say out loud, but it’s liberating, too; they are making decisions, the two of them are. No longer simply doing what they think they should be doing. “Not because you aren’t, it’s been something I’ve thought about for a long time…”

“I know, Steve,” Bucky says with a slight grin. He presses Steve’s hands back, a responding squeeze. Fondness radiating from the gesture. “I could tell.”

Steve wants to kiss him, so he does. Just leans forward, knees knocking together, and kisses him. 

“Goddamn,” Bucky says, as soon as his mouth is free again. He sounds much more composed about this than Steve feels, and Steve wishes so much that they could both debrief to Fury at the same time, confident in the presence of each other. He’s just now finally gotten Bucky, safe and whole and unquestionably his—the idea of being separated from him again, even for a bit, is not a good one. “We’re fucking doing this.”

The sun finally pushes its way all the way through the misty purple dawn, and spreads white-gold rays through their kitchen. They spill down onto Bucky: his head, his shoulders, the bruises on his face. He’s smiling through it, and Steve cannot breathe. 

“Yeah,” Steve says. Chest so full and yet so light. “Yeah we fucking are.”

***

Bucky curls his hands of the arms of the hard chair in Fury’s waiting room. 

Steve has been in there for a long time. He went in there right after Bucky did, all pale cheeks and an expression that to anybody else would be unreadable. Stoic. His usual calm reserve. 

Bucky knows him now, though; Bucky knows how to read those immovable features. 

Nervous. Steve was nervous. 

He’d stopped to kiss Bucky on the cheek as Agent Hill held the door for both of them, circulating Bucky out of Fury’s office and Steve in, and all of the shaking-apart strangeness Bucky had felt after his conversation with Fury—relief, and anxiety, and annoying leftover fear—had settled inside of him. They were almost done. Almost. 

Fury had raised his eyebrows when Bucky had informed him of his decision, but his was a face that Bucky had never become adept at reading. Bucky didn’t know what Fury thought about his resignation—and while Director Fury was not a bad man, Bucky found that he… didn’t really care. 

This was Bucky’s decision. And he felt good about it. 

“We’ll miss your contribution to our agency, Barnes,” Fury had said, after a pause that Bucky’s poor nerves nearly hadn’t made it through. “You were a great asset to SHIELD.”

_ We’ll miss your contribution.  _ Not  _ you.  _ They would miss his work ethic. 

Bucky had smiled. Working for SHIELD was admirable; it just wasn’t for him any longer. 

“I’m proud to have done what I did to help,” Bucky had said. And when he shook Fury’s hand, he didn’t feel any regret. 

He hopes it’s going as well for Steve. 

Time passes. Bucky is just getting into an article about the fashion choices of Pepper Potts and how much they cost—rich people are  _ wild _ —when Fury’s office door opens. 

Bucky is on his feet and across the room as quickly as he can be. 

“How did it go?” he asks, breathless with curiosity and a strange, thrumming sort of anxiety that has been steadily rebuilding the whole time Steve was in there, clawing at Bucky’s chest with sharp claws. What if Fury wouldn’t let Steve resign? What if Steve decided he didn’t  _ want  _ to? What if— 

“ _ Bucky _ ,” Steve says, which isn’t an answer, but there’s a smile on those lips so Bucky doesn’t really care. Steve catches Bucky around the waist and he kisses him, heedless of Agent Hill smirking at them from the open doorway, heedless of Fury’s arched eyebrows judging them from the office beyond. Steve bumps Bucky’s bruised lip with his own with a little too much force, but Bucky doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even flinch, doesn’t even care. He’d take a thousand more bruises if it meant Steve wouldn’t ever let go. 

“This is a surprise,” Hill says mildly. 

Steve pulls back at her voice, blinking a couple of times like he’s only just remembered there is anyone else in the room. It’s absolutely adorable. Bucky is incandescent with love for him. 

“We don’t hate each other anymore,” Bucky says helpfully over Steve’s shoulder. He tosses in a smile, just because. Just because he wants to. 

Hill is watching them with something approaching giddiness. In his office, Fury has covered his eye with his palm. “I gathered that,” Hill says. 

“Ok,” Steve says, cheeks pink, “Leaving time,” and Bucky laughs as Steve herds him out of the room. 

***

Later, and Bucky is curling as close to Steve as he can possibly get on the tiny couch in Steve’s apartment. 

Steve is taking all of this with remarkable composure. Bucky can feel him humming quietly, in fact, when he presses his lips to the warm skin at the base of Steve’s throat; he can feel his voice rumble there. He closes his eyes and he doesn’t pull away. 

They had come back here after talking to Fury, their hands full of paperwork that they were obviously not going to get to tonight, because Steve’s apartment was closer than Bucky’s and where else could they go? Not back to the house they had just spent the last few weeks in. Never there. 

The thought is tinged with melancholy, but that feeling is dulled by the joy Bucky feels. The happiness. 

Bucky lets out his own quiet noise as Steve works his fingertips across Bucky’s scalp, gentle, but with enough pressure that Bucky’s whole body is tingling slightly. Bucky’s ribs still hurt like a bitch, and he knows Steve knows, because every touch he’s bestowed Bucky with has been like that: gentle. Careful. Enough quiet and caring force that Bucky feels like he’s floating in a cloud, despite the lingering injuries. Steve touches him like he loves him. It is a privilege to know that that’s true. 

Steve had fucked him earlier for the first time, slow as everything, gentle as everything, so good that Bucky had cried a little. They haven’t bothered to put any clothes back on. Nobody will be in here tonight but them. 

“You ok, honey?” Steve asks him when the sigh Bucky lets out this time carries a bit more voice than the previous one had. One of his broad palms skirts Bucky’s tender ribs, like he’s already memorized the shape of Bucky’s bruises there. He probably has. 

“Yeah,” Bucky murmurs. He is. He so very much is. His lips brush Steve’s throat when he speaks, and a shiver runs through Steve, and Bucky smiles. “I’m perfect.”

Steve holds him a little tighter, and Bucky goes willingly. 

They have paperwork to do tomorrow. They have things to talk through after that; what they will do, where they will live. 

They have the rest of their lives to figure it all out, and if Bucky knows one thing, it is that they will do it together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the epilogue to go! Should be up sometime around the 15th.


	16. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MERRY IMPEACHMAS

_ One Year Later  _

“Stevie,” Bucky says. “Light of my life. You big fucking idiot.”

“In my defense—” Steve begins, and Bucky is hovering in the middle of the kitchen with his arms crossed over his chest, so Steve takes a couple of steps forward and snags him about the waist. 

“You’re so stupid,” Bucky says. He starts the sentence trying to glare, but by the end he’s simply laughing, melting into Steve’s hold, his arms going around Steve’s shoulders. “I love you, but you are so very stupid.”

“I love you too, Buck,” Steve says happily. He kisses Bucky’s cheek, filled with warmth at the fact that they get to say that, even now, even a year later, and he savors the warmth of Bucky’s skin beneath his lips. 

“I don’t think that was the part of that sentence you were supposed to focus on,” Natasha remarks dryly as she skirts around the tangle of Steve and Bucky. She picks up the sunken, liquid-y cake Steve had been  _ trying his best  _ to bake and scraps it into the trash, her lips tipped up into her trademark smirk. 

“It’s the important part,” Steve counters. 

“Not really,” Bucky murmurs from the warm confines of Steve’s chest. “Sweetheart, you didn’t put any flour in that cake.”

“He was  _ distracted _ ,” Sam pipes up. He and Riley are seated around the circular table in the corner of Steve and Bucky’s kitchen, watching the shenanigans with their usual mild resignation at the fact that these are their friends. Clint is sitting on the floor with Lucky, to nobody’s surprise. “By Barnes’  _ midriff.” _

Bucky tugs at the bottom of his crop top and waggles his eyebrows at Sam. Everyone in this room has been ogling him. Bucky has been… flaunting. Steve can  _ tell.  _

“He should be used to it by now,” says Riley. 

“Thank you, Riley,” says Bucky. 

“I wish I had better friends,” says Steve. 

“I wish I had a boyfriend who could cook,” says Bucky, extricating himself from Steve’s hold and sidling up next to Natasha to help her carry plates to the table, “but nobody can have it all.”

Dinner is loud and a little bit chaotic, just as it always is when Steve and Bucky attempt to fit the contents of three houses into their tiny kitchen. Bucky has to sit halfway on Steve’s lap because Nat and Clint drag Lucky up onto the bench between them, and Sam ends up sitting on a stool instead of a chair in order to make room for Riley’s wheelchair, and nobody can find enough spoons so Steve ends up drinking his Italian wedding soup like a very chunky beverage right out of the bowl—and it’s perfect. 

Steve wouldn’t have it any other way. 

***

They still sleep in that room that started out as Bucky’s, all those days and weeks and months ago. Now, there is no denying that it’s inextricably theirs: their clothes mixed in the closet, their books stacked together on the nightstand and the shelves Bucky nailed up on the wall last summer. Steve’s easel up in the corner. Bucky’s laptop open on the desk. 

Bucky is in bed when Steve enters the room, nestled under the covers with a book propped on his steepled knees. He smiles when Steve slips in beside him. Wraps an arm around Steve’s shoulders, and lets him lean his head against his chest. 

“I’m sleepy,” says Steve. 

Bucky is warm, and soft, and an excellent pillow. Steve gets himself all the way beneath the blankets and then winds his arm around Bucky’s waist, squishing him a little, liking the way his laugh vibrates through his chest and against Steve’s cheek. 

“Then go to sleep,” Bucky murmurs. He turns a page, and then sets that hand down on the crown of Steve’s head. “Just gotta finish this chapter.” 

They’re quiet for a moment. Steve closes his eyes, letting himself drift to the gentle in and out of Bucky’s breath, the soft rasp of turning pages, the rustle of the quilt they’re huddled beneath. 

“You still wanna go to the market tomorrow morning?” Bucky asks presently, scratching his fingers through the hair at the base of Steve’s neck. “Probably the last week we can get any fresh produce before winter.”

“Mmmmhm,” Steve murmurs, too tired to form any words, drifting pleasantly in that half-awake state of agreeability. He’ll go if Bucky goes. He’ll stay home if Bucky stays home. 

“Ok,” Bucky says. Laughs again. He laughs a lot. Steve loves him. “We’ll see how early we wanna wake up.”

Probably not very early, Steve predicts, as Bucky closes his book and reaches around Steve to flick the lamp off. They settle back against the pillows, and Bucky rolls into Steve’s arms, and Steve notches his chin on top of Bucky’s head. 

Steve is tired, but still it takes him a moment to fall any deeper into sleep than this nice, golden place. He’s still caught up in the gentle noises Bucky makes as he’s drifting: the rhythm of his breath, yes, but the way he hums a bit as he gets comfortable, too, or the feel-sound of his heartbeat where they’re pressed together. 

He gets overwhelmed with how happy he is, sometimes. Not  _ bad  _ overwhelmed—it’s a very, very good sort of overwhelmed—but an overwhelmed that pushes his sleeping hours back, keeps him up with the weight of their luck. 

They were able to move back home—back to the home they’d made for themselves, on that fateful job. The house was up for sale a couple of months after they finished that job, and SHIELD paid well, and even though they had decided to take it slow for a while, just to make sure they really wanted to do this, all of that had gone out of the window when Bucky had sent Steve a link to the realtor’s website. They were sure. They wanted to do this. 

Steve couldn’t imagine ever wanting anything else. 

***   


Steve’s awake before Bucky in the morning, just like he always is. He takes a moment, turned on his side toward Bucky, and just breathes as he lets his eyes roam over Bucky’s features. 

Bucky’s so peaceful when he sleeps. The soft bow of his mouth, lips parted a little, cheek pillowed on folded hands. 

Steve kisses him before he rolls out of bed. Bucky murmurs a little—not quite asleep anymore, not quite awake—and Steve makes sure to tuck the blankets in behind him. 

It’s early. Fall is just on the cusp of winter, and everything is bright and chill in the sort of way that makes Steve breathless with anticipation as he meets Sam on the sidewalk in front of their houses, each of them wearing joggers and sweatshirts, taking clean lungfuls of air as they prepare to set off for their semi-daily run. 

“Your boy still asleep?” Sam asks as they start off at an even, mellow pace. Steve is faster than Sam, but Sam can run at a steady speed for longer. They’ve compromised somewhere in the middle. 

“Yeah,” Steve says, and he and Sam catch the lovesick smile on his face at the same time. Steve goes red, and Sam grins and ruffles Steve’s hair. “Keep up, loverboy,” Sam says. 

Steve rolls his eyes, and does. 

***

Bucky holds Steve’s hand as they wander up and down the aisles of the market, and Steve smiles at him and leans in a little, bumping their shoulders together. Bucky doesn’t mind. It’s cold this morning, anyway, and his boyfriend is like a giant human furnace. 

They have a system worked out for these market days. It’s simple: Bucky does the shopping, and Steve carries the bags. 

“I think Maya told me she was gonna have kumquats today,” Bucky muses as he tugs Steve down an aisle, craning his neck a little to see if his favorite vendor is where she usually is. “Think I should spring for them?”

“Sure, Buck,” Steve says. He clearly has no opinion one way or another, content to just wander behind Bucky and let him do the picking, and Bucky loves him for that. Bucky loves him for a lot of reasons, but that one certainly helps. 

“Ok,” Bucky says, and laughs a little, just because he feels like it. He gets the kumquats. Why the hell not. 

***

Bucky is writing a book. Steve is unfailingly supportive, regardless of the fact that he hasn’t actually read any of it yet. 

Bucky works on it now, his feet in Steve’s lap as Steve watches a documentary about baby seals with the volume on low. He’ll let Steve read it sooner rather than later, he thinks. He knows Steve well enough to be sure that even if what Bucky is writing is terrible—astronauts, and planets that don’t exist, and a love story that Bucky is a little ashamed to say makes him cry sometimes—Steve will still be proud of him for trying at all, and that’s enough. 

Soon. Not yet, though. 

“Did you know seals only have one pup a year?” Steve says out loud, obviously still caught up in the program. 

Bucky glances up at him. He’s watching the show avidely, eyes glued to the screen, the same smile he always gets on his face whenever he sees a cute dog or cat. 

“No, Stevie,” Bucky says, not bothering to hide his own smile. “I didn’t.”

Bucky shuts his laptop. He’s writing a kissing scene, but he finds that the prospect of a real-life kiss appeals to him more, so he sets the laptop on the floor and climbs up into Steve’s lap, dropping his arms around his neck. 

Steve blinks, hands automatically lifting to circle Bucky’s waist gently. His lashes are gold in with the splash of light from the Christmas lights they have draped over the mantle behind them. “Hello,” he says. 

He’s pretty. Bucky loves him. “Hi,” Bucky responds a little breathlessly. 

Steve’s smile grows. He runs his thumbs over the strip of bare skin between Bucky’s waistband and the bottom of his shirt. “Can I help you?”

Bucky tips forward a little, tucks his nose beneath the notch of Steve’s jaw. Breathes deep. “Yeah,” he says softly. 

“Yeah,” Steve repeats, and turns his head, and meets Bucky’s lips with his own. 

Bucky’s whole spine melts: a long warm lick of golden-warm heat, rendering him boneless in Steve’s grip. Steve accommodates this, getting a palm braced against the small of Bucky’s back, maneuvering them so that Bucky is stretched out on the couch beneath him, kissing him deep and slow. 

They don’t get up for a long time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for following along with this fic! Every single one of your comments has brought joy, and I promise I'll answer them all as soon as possible!

**Author's Note:**

> Come scream with me about stevebucky on [twitter](https://twitter.com/home), I won't judge you when you cry bc I'll be crying too


End file.
